


Volatu Icari

by REVVIII



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bottom Hannibal Lecter, But they switch, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Hallucinations, M/M, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Rough Sex, Sexual Tension, Wendigo, Will Graham is a Mess, character death is not will or hannibal, no thanks to Hannibal, this fic is also horny, this show is so goddamn horny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:54:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 95,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/REVVIII/pseuds/REVVIII
Summary: Hannibal is not technically Will's psychiatrist, just as Will is not technically working for the FBI. But their conversations border on psychiatry, and when Will starts to find enjoyment in envisioning a serial killer's process and spirals further into instability, he finds that Hannibal is right there beside him. But the bounds between him, Hannibal, and the Ripper begin to blur, and he can't deny an irresistible attraction to either of them. Soon, his own sanity seems uncertain, and he must ask himself the question: is Hannibal the Chesapeake Ripper, or is he?This fic follows a slightly altered timeline of the general plot of the show but contains some major changes, including but not limited to real interactions with an ongoing hallucination of a Wendigo, a bit more eroticism than is strictly necessary in the act of killing (alright, not that major a change), and various other authorial choices for the purpose of making it even gayer (a Herculean task).
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 21
Kudos: 184





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Posting chapter-by-chapter every Monday and Thursday.

LATE SUMMER

The girl looks peaceful, almost, as the still-velvety antlers push into her body. Her skin gives like silk and the points slide through the butter of her thighs and back and arms; blood runs in thin crimson rivets, drips down her feet, splatters unseen into the ryegrass and thistles that are gathered below her.

Will didn’t want to hurt her. That was never the intention. He only wanted to display her, to honor her beauty, in a way that would give her transformation into something better. The antlers would be her death just as they would be the mount for the artwork he would make out of her—they would be in her lungs, now, slipping neatly between ribs and past muscle to pierce the soft organs within…

She will be dead soon. He whispers a soft apology to her, explains that she had to be alive for this, that the work had to be completed before she faded away or the meaning would be lost. He only regrets that she was unwilling, that he’d had to sedate her to prevent her from moving and ruining the art he’d planned out so carefully. Even now, her eyes are wide with fear, and he knows that she would be fighting if she had any control left over her body.

But her pulse is fading. He needs to work more quickly.

The antlers are positioned and angled so that the girl is slightly on her back, not fully resting on their points but doing more than just hanging from them. They’re like wings, especially with the vines he’s brought to weave through them; they’re like wings that sprout from her body to carry her to the next life. As for the girl herself, she’s like a flower, her arms outstretched and her face upturned, growing towards the sun. He’s been careful to position her to face it, and when morning comes, it will bleach her eyes.

But it is not morning yet. He rearranges the plants he’s brought; daisies, for innocence, daffodils, for rebirth, lilac, for tranquility. They rest in garlands over her body, pale-colored petals bright and almost-glowing in the darkness. Her hair has tangled; he runs his fingers gently through it.

He feels her pulse. It’s still there; good. Enough time to position the birds and wipe the blood from her body. He does the latter first with a cloth that he will burn later, then turns his attention to the other task. He tucks a dead sparrow into each of the girl’s closed hands and one down her still-breathing throat, making sure that the beaks of the birds in her hands are exposed to the air, parting the girl’s lips so that the dead bird in her throat remains visible, and steps back to look at his work.

It is almost finished. He steps forward, kisses the girl’s brow, and draws his knife. He makes two precise, small slits in her throat, just enough to cut the carotid.

It’s the last step.

Her blood sprays. Her heart has just enough strength left to accomplish what he wanted, and when the spray weakens and fades and stops, and when the girl is dead, he smiles.

Her body has caught most of the blood as he’d hoped it would. It’s beautiful, dotting leaves and petals and skin in two spray patterns, one on either side of her body. The blood, black in the moonlight, glistens like thousands and thousands of obsidian shards, bathes her body in a raven dress.

Under the stars, it is perfect.

At dawn, it will be magnificent.

Will opened his eyes.

“This is it,” he said. “This is the last one. Whoever his main target is, he’s going after her now.” He swallowed, forced his breathing to slow. There was a clench deep in his gut.

Jack frowned. “How do you know?”

“Because she’s perfect,” Will said flatly, about the girl the FBI had just found impaled by antlers. “Everything about that display is perfect. There’s no evidence of mistake, no evidence of anger. She was practice—they _all_ were practice. But he’s done practicing now. He’s ready to take on his intended victim and help her be reborn.”

“And once his target is killed, he’s going to vanish,” Jack said. It wasn’t a question; he knew what he was talking about. Jack was experienced, and he’d been in the field far longer than Will had been working for him. He’d caught killers for far longer than he’d been borrowing Will’s imagination. He knew patterns.

Will glanced at Jack, caught the sharp gaze for just a moment before tearing away again. “We need to catch him before that happens and hope that’ll also be in time to save whoever he’s truly trying to go after.”

Jack nodded once. “Alright. I’ll let the rest of the team know, and we’ll get on it. We’ll analyze the soil from the plants, take a look at the antlers, check for tissue under the fingernails, you know, the usual. Any other ideas on how we can find this guy?”

Will hesitated, thought back on the killing process. There were several things that were different between this kill and the last; the arterial spray, the birds, the vines woven through the antlers that made up the girl’s wings. They all had meaning, of course; the Shrike didn’t paint without purpose. But not all the colors he mixed were equal; some would be easier to decipher than others. Some revealed the pigments they had been borne of more readily.

“The birds,” he said after a moment. “They were important to him. More important than the other changes he made, which means it’s our most likely shot at finding him. It looks like a type of sparrow. I don’t know what kind, but the species is going to be significant. The timing is important, too; they were placed before the carotid was cut. Look at the splatters of blood on their feathers; everything was in place by the time the girl died.”

“They’re saltmarsh sparrows, I think. Or Nelson’s,” Beverly said from a few feet behind him. Will turned around to face her. “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude,” she said. “I’ve just got a brief look at the birds. I didn’t want to disturb anything before you were finished, but I think that’s what they are. I can take a closer look now to confirm if you’re done.”

Jack glanced at him. “Will?”

Will nodded and stepped back. “It’s all yours.”

Beverly approached the body, being careful not to touch anything other than the girl’s fingers, which she pried open gently to expose the sparrow nested in them. She looked closely at it for a few moments, and then straightened and nodded. “Definitely either saltmarsh or Nelson’s sparrow.”

“And you’re sure?” Jack asked.

Beverly nodded, but she looked troubled. “I’m ninety percent sure. My father watched birds, and he pointed out the sparrows to me all the time. He said that they were the most overlooked birds, if that might factor into the analysis. Not sure if he’s trying to make something special out of something ordinary or whatever.” She peered at the bird again, turning it slightly to expose its breast. “Hm. Saltmarsh sparrows are often mistaken for Nelson’s sparrows, and vice versa, and in fact they’re quite closely related and can interbreed. When that happens in a population, it’s often impossible to tell which birds are saltmarsh, which birds are Nelson’s, and which birds are hybrids. I wouldn’t trust myself completely on a visual identification, but considering the Nelson’s sparrow is the one that lives in Minnesota, my guess is that this is a Nelson’s, unless he travels out of state regularly.”

Jack glanced at Will as Beverly stepped around to the other side of the body to look at the bird in the girl’s other hand. “Any chance our Minnesota Shrike isn’t actually from Minnesota?”

Will shook his head, frowned. “No. He’s definitely from Minnesota. Or at least, he’s lived here for a long time, and is currently living here. If these kills are supposed to be practice for his target, he’s going to want them to be as perfect as possible, including getting as close to his desired location as he can without actually giving it away.”

“He’d also have to go all the way to the east coast to get saltmarsh sparrows,” Beverly added. “Somehow I can’t see him doing that.” She paused. “You were talking about the timing of the placement. Live sparrows symbolize power, diligence, and courage, but dead sparrows symbolize fresh starts and new beginnings. These sparrows look like they’ve been dead for more than a few hours, meaning they were already dead by the time he placed them on the body. If he’s drawing from the symbolism of the dead birds, maybe he put them in their place before the girl’s death because he believed they would guide her soul to be reborn.”

“He wanted to transform her,” Will said. “This would be it.”

“So who exactly is it he’s going after?” Jack asked. “What’s her relation to him? A friend, a lover, a sister?”

“A daughter,” Will said bluntly. “There’s something… _reverent_ …about the way he positioned this girl. Nothing sexual; her nudity is purity and innocence, not something fueled by lust. And there is a maturity to these kills that speaks of an older man; old enough to be father to any one of the girls he’s killed. He is half of her life, her mother is her other half. He is half of her transformation as well.”

Jack frowned. “He is her death, and the sparrows are her rebirth,” he said. “Her life wouldn’t have been complete—or even possible—without both sperm and egg, and the transformation isn’t complete without its ending and rebeginning either.”

“But why bring the sparrows in now for the rebirth?” Beverly asked. “Why with this girl and none of the others?”

“I’m…not sure,” Will admitted. “The reason for that isn’t clear to me, and since I wasn’t consulting during his previous kills and didn’t see them in person, it’s hard to say why he didn’t include them then. But I would guess that it’s because she’s the last one before his true target. The display itself was perfect, and part of that was because of the girl herself. She’s the closest to his true target, so he’s thanking her. He regrets that she had to die because he cares about her and he’s repaying her in the only way he can.”

“ _Cares_ about her? So you don’t think this guy is a psychopath,” Jack said, and Will could hear the incredulity in his voice.

“No,” Will said firmly. “I’m sure about that. He’s not a psychopath. He cares, and other than this, the way he expresses that care wouldn’t be so different from you or I.” He gestured at the plants, at the antlers. “Daffodils for rebirth. Lilacs for tranquility. He wanted a peaceful death for her. The antlers are like wings.” He paused, swallowed. “He made her into an angel.”

Jack looked at the body, narrowed his eyes. “In that case, he’s acting on an impulse that he can’t control, or at least _thinks_ he can’t control. This kill will have satisfied him for a bit, but the time between kills has been getting shorter and shorter. Now that he knows exactly what he needs to do and now that he knows he can do it, if the impulse is so strong, what’s there to stop him from killing his target immediately?”

Will was quiet for a few moments. Care itself wasn’t enough to stop a man from killing; the statistics of murder were testament to that. There had to be something more, something that was powerful enough to hold at bay a compulsive need to kill that he would otherwise have long since given into.

“He doesn’t just care; he loves her,” Will realized, and there was a bit of wonder in all that. Wonder that a man could love something to the extent that the Shrike loved his target and yet still want to destroy it. Or maybe the destruction was part of his love; he wanted to tear down what she was now so that he could rebuild her into what he envisioned she could be. He love meant that he wanted her to be reborn into another life because this one had been so wrong.

And yet while he loved, he hated the destruction. He thought it was necessary, but it pained him to cause her any pain even if he believed that it would be better in the long run. He believed her death meant that in the scale of existence, eons longer than an individual life and with infinitely more possibility, he would be helping her, but he knew it meant that he would be parted from her, and he couldn’t bear that.

That pain was the only thing keeping the Shrike from killing her immediately. That pain was the FBI’s only chance of saving her.

Will found himself talking to Hannibal Lecter the day after the Shrike’s last kill. Technically neither of them worked for the FBI, and technically Hannibal wasn’t Will’s psychiatrist, but they both came along on cases; Will to consult, Hannibal to be Will’s stability after. The lack of official relationship gave Hannibal the freedom to discuss Will with Jack or Alana, and it gave Will the freedom to discuss cases with Hannibal. They were both aware of the situation, and it didn’t seem to bother either of them.

“The results from the lab haven’t come back yet,” Will was saying. “I’m most interested in the birds. Figuring out what exactly they are. They’re important, but I can’t exactly figure out why. The results from the lab will help with that.” Will grimaced. “That’s the hope, at least.”

“Their importance is still a gut feeling, then?” Hannibal asked. His voice, lightly accented, was calm. Clinical. It wasn’t an official doctor-patient relationship, but it was still treated as a session, as an appointment. Even if they were in one of the FBI’s makeshift conference rooms in Minnesota and it felt more like an interrogation than a conversation.

“Not exactly,” Will said. “In a canvas, everything comes together to make a whole, and the piece is not complete without every aspect that is ultimately presented. But you cannot deny that some elements are more important than others; the focus of the piece, for example. In this case, it’s the girl. And then there is the message that is sent. In some cases, the message is just an aesthetic, in which case the colors or spacing of objects might be the highest contributing factors. In other cases, as it is with this display, the message is an actual message, and here it is carried by the birds. Everything else that he brought in here was in preparation for that, in support of that.”

A slight smile graced Hannibal’s features. “The rebirth.”

“They are the rebirth,” Will agreed. “But it’s not an honor that he’d give just anyone. He saved it for just the last two: the girl who was immediately before his target, and the target herself, who we have yet to identify and who we have to hope is still alive. The idea of rebirth is clearly something that is important to him, clearly something that he was thinking about in previous kills but reluctant to include in their displays due to lack of perfection on part of the victims. If he was thinking about it to that extent, it follows that he must have had something specific in mind for this last step of his metamorphosis, and if I can figure that out, it brings us that much closer to finding him.”

Hannibal seemed amused. “This sounds quite thorough for something you say you haven’t figured out yet.”

Will huffed a laugh, sat back in his chair. “Well, that’s only one of two options.” His hands tightened; a wry smile tugged at his lips. “This is either the completion of his metamorphosis, or the guilt of causing pain was getting to his head and he was trying to atone for it by letting her be reborn.”

“Strange that you cannot parse out such an important distinction,” Hannibal said.

Will swallowed, looked away. “Strange,” he murmured. “I suppose some things are too abstract even for me to understand.”

“Abstract art of any notable quality should be comprehensible to one so well-versed in engaging it. Even works of seemingly arbitrary meaning have logic or technique behind them, provided they are truly of quality.”

Will’s smile widened. “Are you calling him a bad artist?”

“Possibly. Or you could be missing something.”

“Or perhaps he wasn’t clear of it himself. Motives often blur, after all.”

Hannibal inclined his chin. “Mystery can be part of art,” he agreed.

“And yet something tells me that you’re right, that I’m missing something and that’s why I don’t fully understand him. A killer of his experience is never random in his motivation; I just need to be able to find the pattern. And the pattern here is…different. Something I haven’t encountered before. I’ve looked at the case files from his previous kills and I haven’t figured out how the birds match up.”

“He certainly sounds like a more complex killer than the ones you’ve mentioned before,” Hannibal agreed. He leaned forward in his chair slightly. “You catch killers by getting into their heads. You analyze what you see and unravel the history of it. Tell me, Will, how did you envision this kill?”

Will matched Hannibal’s movement. “I… _became_ him,” he said quietly. “I saw what was in front of me, knew what had been done to achieve it. I felt myself doing it. He killed her slowly, not out of malevolence, but of perceived need. None of what he did was out of malevolence; he is sensitive, and he cares. He cared about each of his victims just as much as he cares about his true target, because to him, they _are_ her. But even though he didn’t want to hurt her, he killed her slowly. Personally.”

“And she was conscious?”

“She had to be.” Will’s mouth was dry. “He couldn’t have her moving around; it would tear the canvas, spoil the art. He wanted everything to be neat, clean, precise. She obviously wouldn’t willingly cooperate with her own death, so he had to sedate her. But he wanted her as close to awake as possible, so he did the bare minimum. He prevented her from moving, but she was conscious and could feel everything. The arterial spray is her death; she was alive when he mounted her on the antlers.”

Hannibal’s eyes were fixed on Will’s face, and there was a quiet intensity to his gaze that Will could feel, even as his voice remained calm and detached, even as Will refused to meet his eyes. “And you felt this when you became him.”

“Yes.”

“And how did that make _you_ feel?”

“Me?” Will huffed a laugh. Had it been anyone else, it would have been easy enough to lie, to say that it was a terrible thing, but this was Hannibal Lecter, and he knew Hannibal wouldn’t run, so he answered honestly. “I felt powerful, inevitable, brilliant…gratified. I felt like I was accomplishing what needed to be done. Afterwards—now—I know those were his feelings, I know that wasn’t me feeling it as myself.” He laughed again, humorlessly this time. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to know the distinction.”

There seemed to be something almost like amusement on Hannibal’s face. “You have pure empathy, after all,” Hannibal said. “It’s understandable that other men’s emotions sometimes become your own.”

Will’s lips twitched in a smile. “But so long as I come back to myself, Jack has no reason to worry.”

“And Alana? She’s expressed concern for you in the past.”

“She’s not my psychiatrist,” Will said. A friend, yes, but not his psychiatrist.

“Neither am I, technically,” Hannibal pointed out.

“A technicality,” Will said. He paused. “Are _you_ worried?”

“I believe what Jack has you doing is extremely stressful, but I trust that you would tell me if you felt like you were being overwhelmed,” Hannibal said simply, and his expression was open, honest. “I worry about you in the field, of course; although so far you’ve only visited crime scenes after they’ve happened, you are not entirely safe. You’re engaging with killers, after all, before they have been caught. You are in physical danger, but you also expose your mind to the possibility of manipulation.”

Will made a small noise of derision. “The Shrike can’t manipulate me. He’s sophisticated, but not to that extent.”

Hannibal looked amused. “I didn’t believe he could. But there may come a day when you encounter a killer who can. That is when I will worry for you.”

Will swallowed. “So you’re not worried about this…empathy, that you call it? This ability to look into the minds of monsters and think like them?”

“You said yourself, as long as you come back to yourself. Which you have been doing, yes?”

“But what does that say about me?” Will asked quietly. “What does it say that I can empathize with them and not the people around me? My social skills are…rather lacking, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Partly by your own choice, I think,” Hannibal said with a small smile. “You avoid eye contact and connection with those around you to avoid uncomfortable intimacy. In the field, you experience intimacy with an individual who isn’t present, and the act of intimacy that you are otherwise so averse to is what is expected of you in that context. I daresay that makes you more comfortable to experience it. It may be an intrusion, but it is a productive, expected intrusion.”

“And yet, for all my intimacy with him, I still haven’t caught him,” Will said, and there was a note of bitterness in his voice.

“You haven’t caught him after he’s been killing for eight months, only the last of which you actually spent consulting for the FBI. There have been killers who have eluded the FBI for years after dozens of kills.”

“Like the Chesapeake Ripper,” Will said.

“That’s one of them, yes.”

“And the most notorious one.” Will paused. “Jack once said that the Minnesota Shrike is like the next Ripper.”

Hannibal tilted his head; his dark eyes glinted. For a moment, as the light hit his face and accentuated the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, he looked almost dangerous. “And what do you think?” Hannibal asked. “Do you agree that the Shrike is like the next Ripper?”

Will almost laughed. “No,” he said. “In terms of the basic idea behind the execution, perhaps; I never consulted on a Ripper case, that happened after I left the field last time, but from what I know, the Ripper also displayed his victims like art. That might have been what Jack meant. But the Shrike is killing the same way every time. The changes in detail, while they might help us catch him, are ultimately inconsequential in the large scale of things; the Shrike kills to honor his true target, to give her rebirth. The message he tries to convey is the same, and the methods by which he conveys that message remains fundamentally the same. But the Ripper…the Ripper never kills the same way twice, and he doesn’t intend to honor his victims. He creates art for art’s sake, and while it may be symbolic, it is not for the sake of the victim.” Will paused. “Not to mention that to suggest that the Shrike is the next Ripper is to imply that the Ripper is dead or retired.”

“Is he not? It’s been many years since a last Ripper kill, hasn’t it?”

“The beauty of the Ripper is that he is easy to analyze in hindsight, but impossible to predict,” Will said with a wry smile. “If he were predictable, we’d have caught him already. No, I think he’s still very much alive, waiting for the moment to return. I think, if this Shrike case were to get enough attention, it could be enough to prompt it. He doesn’t like copycats who don’t know their place.”

Hannibal watched Will for a long moment; there was something that looked like amusement in his expression, something almost like fondness in the quirk of his mouth. “I find you very interesting, Will Graham,” he said finally.

Will blushed, looked away. “You’ve mentioned that before,” he muttered.

“And I stand by it,” Hannibal said. “Your mind is unique, and it surprises me every time. It forms connections that others could only hope to see. It sees patterns where before there were none, and flaws in the logic that others would have put forward.”

“You make me sound like a psychiatrist’s fantasy. Or delusional,” Will said, but there was no bite in his voice. He chuckled. “I suppose delusions are a symptom of encephalitis, after all.”

“My interest in you is personal, Will; these conversations are not undertaken for the sake of the field. And this is not due to your encephalitis,” Hannibal said, though he smiled at Will’s words. “It is a gift that exists even without the disease.”

“Some wouldn’t call it a gift,” Will said wryly. “Some would call it creepy.”

Hannibal laughed; the corners of his eyes crinkled. “And those same people would be unable to deny that it has been useful. Jack’s success rate in catching killers has gone up significantly in the month since he…how did he put it? Borrowed your imagination?”

Will huffed a laugh, shook his head. “Something like that.” He paused, looked at Hannibal, suddenly curious. “So what brought you into this? Surely Jack didn’t drag you out of your field too?”

“This is your session, Will,” Hannibal said with a smile.

“So I get to talk about what I want,” Will returned. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. “And I want to know how you got here.”

“Why the sudden interest?” Hannibal asked.

A small smile curved Will’s lips and he shrugged. “You’re interested in me, I’m interested in you. Is that so unusual?”

Hannibal was silent for a few moments. “No,” he said finally. “No, I suppose not. If you’re really that curious, I was a surgeon first, and I had wanted to be one for a long time to pursue my passion for anatomy. And then a patient died, and I turned to cooking and psychiatry. Now I’m here. Jack knows me because I know Alana.”

“Short answer,” Will said. “Concise.” He sat back in his chair again. “So no outstanding abilities, then.”

“I like to think I do a good job as a therapist,” Hannibal said, and the smile was back again.

“Sure. But not like me,” Will said. “You’re good in your field, but you’re not unique.”

“Despite the fact that we both consult on cases, Jack sees you as indispensable the way he doesn’t see me, you mean,” Hannibal said.

Will paused. “ _Is_ that how Jack sees me?”

“I believe so,” Hannibal said. “Which is why he should be careful with you. But it is also why he wants you. You’re like a prized possession to him, but one that could break far too easily.”

“And you? How do you see me?”

Hannibal was silent for a few moments. His eyes were on Will’s face, clear, dark, searching, penetrating. Will thought for a moment that calling Hannibal ordinary was unfair; he had a cunning edge to his mind that Will had rarely seen, and an uncanny ability to understand Will. He’d had his doubts the first time he’d met the doctor, but he’d quickly seen a keenness in the other man that he still wasn’t sure if he should be attracted to or wary of.

“You are like a dragonfly,” Hannibal said finally. “One of the most efficient hunters on the planet. They catch up to ninety percent of their prey through an ability to predict how and when their prey will move and highly specialized muscles that give them the agility to pursue.”

Will’s lips quirked in a smile. “They’re also commonly seen as symbols of evil or injury in European folklore.”

“Or symbols of strength and victory in Japan,” Hannibal countered. “There, they are often linked with autumn, a season of change and yet a season of preservation. Birds and squirrels struggle to keep the green of summer while the world changes to red and yellow around them.”

“A complex metaphor, then,” Will said. “Capable of being good or evil.”

“Or both,” Hannibal suggested. “So rarely does there exist only good or evil in one individual.”

Will huffed a laugh. “Rare, indeed. Even the Shrike doesn’t exist in black and white, unless you’ve got a really extreme perspective.”

“Indeed. He cares about his victims,” Hannibal said. “For those who are unable to understand him, it appears that he exists in a contradiction. One would need to accept that their idea of care is not universal, and may in fact be quite the opposite of someone else’s idea of care, to understand him.”

“It’s not quite opposite though, not with the Shrike,” Will said. “He cares just as you or I would care for a daughter; he loves her, he wants the best for her, he doesn’t want to hurt her. He just believes that she could be _more_ , and that belief and desire to allow her metamorphosis is what drives his actions. To others, death is the worst that could be dealt to someone who does not wish it. To him, although it hurts him, the good of what he believes will be her rebirth outweighs that temporary pain.”

“Sounds like an extreme form of religion,” Hannibal said with a smile.

Will laughed. “Maybe that’s what it is, to him. Unwavering faith, belief in an afterlife, belief in a higher purpose or fate…the only thing missing is the higher power. Unless that higher power is himself, of course,” he added. “He ordains the taking of life, after all, and doesn’t a benevolent god love their creations even as they must destroy them?”

“So you think he sees himself as benevolent,” Hannibal said.

“Wouldn’t you, if you killed with the genuine intention of bettering your victim’s future? If you loved and did all you could to help that loved one achieve the best in them?”

“I can’t speak to the first one,” Hannibal said. “But with regards to the second, if I believed I acted with kindness in bettering one I loved, I think that would be the very definition of benevolence, would it not?”

“I suppose, yes. Still, that’s tough love, killing those you care for, isn’t it?” Will asked with a smile. “Even if you say he’s doing it _for_ them. Even if you put it that way.”

“I wouldn’t know, Will,” Hannibal said, mirroring Will’s smile, and there was an almost savage grace in the way the light streamed in through the window and fell across his cheeks, slanting through his eyes and turning them to golden honey.

“No,” Will murmured. “Of course you wouldn’t.” He held Hannibal’s gaze, tried to see past what suddenly looked like a porcelain mask, skin turned paper-thin and translucent by sunlight. But Hannibal was unreadable, a perfect model of a detached, clinical psychiatrist, and he wondered if maybe the keenness he’d sensed masked something else as well, something that prickled the back of his neck, something that warned him that not everything was as it seemed.

Something that was dangerous.

Jack called early the next morning. “We’ve got an ID on the victim,” he said as soon as Will picked up the phone. “Her name is Cassie Boyle. Went missing about a week ago. We’ve also got all the lab results back—sooner than I expected, considering we’re working in an unfamiliar lab. The data from the soil by itself was inconclusive, the plants didn’t all come from the same place but all locations were within close enough range from where Boyle was displayed that he could have just picked them fresh. We also found cisatracurium in her system.”

“A skeletal muscle relaxant,” Will said.

“Exactly. She was effectively paralyzed. But we didn’t find any analgesics. She felt everything that was happening to her.” There was a pause. “I always hope you’re wrong about that when we get to cases like this. You never are.”

“The discovery of cisatracurium alone won’t help us much,” Will said, ignoring Jack’s troubled comment. “It’s a common drug in almost all hospitals. We can narrow our list of likely suspects down to people who work in hospitals or otherwise have access to it, but that list itself will be fairly extensive and we don’t have much time left.”

“That’s not the only reason I called,” Jack said. “We got results back about the birds, too. Beverly was almost right. She said they were saltmarsh or Nelson’s sparrows, most likely Nelson’s due to range. But you want to guess what the results came back as?”

“Saltmarsh,” Will said.

“Saltmarsh,” Jack agreed. “Of course, he might have driven out east to capture them, but turns out there’s only one place in Minnesota where they keep those birds, and there’s also hospital not far from it. We can start there, screen the employees and see if any of them have a daughter who looks like Cassie Boyle.” He paused. “Good thing you said the species was important. Otherwise, that might have been the last thing we’d have looked at.”

Will frowned. “Odd that he’d choose a bird that leads to him so easily.”

Jack laughed. “Don’t say it’s led to him until we actually catch him. We’re not sure if this lead holds any real promise yet. I’m at the office, when can you get here?”

Will glanced at the clock. It was a little less than a half-hour drive from the hotel the FBI were staying at and the Minnesota office they were using while they were in the area, but it was six in the morning and he hadn’t yet gotten out of bed. “Forty minutes, maybe?”

“Mm. Make it thirty.”

Jack was already deep in conversation with Beverly by the time Will arrived; both of them turned around as he walked in.

“Hey,” Beverly greeted.

“Sorry I’m late,” Will muttered. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it, I just got here ten minutes ago,” Beverly said. “We ran—well, Jack started, I came in halfway—a search on the employees from the hospital; a few names have come up, but when we looked at them more closely none of them have daughters who look anything like the victims. We considered looking at nieces or cousins or even granddaughters, for the two that were old enough to have them, but that wouldn’t fit the profile.”

Will frowned. “Anyone recently fired? Or resigned?”

“That’s what we did,” Beverly said with a smile. “And look what we found: a guy named Garret Jacob Hobbs. Just resigned from the hospital a few days ago; he was an anesthesiologist there for years. It would give him all the access to cisatracurium he needed. He and his wife separated twelve years ago, and they have a sixteen-year-old daughter named Abigail. Take a look.” She stepped back from the screen.

Even at first glance, Abigail Hobbs bore a striking resemblance to the other eight girls the Shrike had killed; slim and pale, with long dark hair and bright blue eyes.

“His address is near one of the places that came up in the soil analysis,” Jack added. “By themselves, those results were inconclusive. With this address, things become a lot clearer.”

“It’s him,” Will said. “It has to be him.”

“The resignation makes me nervous,” Beverly said. “Like, who resigns from being an anesthesiologist? It’s so many years of training to get there, really good money, and not something you can really climb to a higher job position from. All in all, not a job we’d expect most people to walk away from—unless you’re about to go after your target and you think your life will effectively be over after that.”

“The resignation was a few days ago,” Will said. “A few days is all he would have needed to prepare everything for the kill.”

“We have enough probable cause for an arrest,” Beverly said. “We could go after him.”

“But we’ll need to be careful,” Jack said. “How desperate is he to be the one to kill his daughter? Is he going to be the ‘if I can’t have her, no one can’ type of crazy?”

Will frowned, shook his head. “It’s hard to say. The point of him killing her is for her to be reborn, and for that he needs the sparrows; they are integral to her transformation. He will do everything he can to have the sparrows on hand during her death, meaning he might rush to kill her if he hears that we’re coming or that we know who he is, since that obviously means he’ll lose his chance. But so far, he has no reason to know that. If we surprise him, he might be able to catch him before that happens.” He paused. “On the other hand, his need to kill her is extremely strong. He might not be able to resist it, especially under stress of threatened arrest.”

“Either way, the best outcome is if we go after him today,” Beverly said.

“We go after him _now_ ,” Will said. “You said yourself, Jack, we have enough reason to arrest him. And he has no reason to know we’re coming. The longer we wait, the greater the chance that he acts.”

“We go after him now, but we do it carefully,” Jack said. “We’ll play it safe so we don’t do something that will spook him. Just because we’re able to use force when necessary doesn’t mean that I want to. And yes, we go now, but we go with backup. Yes?”

“Yes,” Will said, and Beverly nodded.

Will didn’t wait for backup.

He was at the Hobbs house an hour later. He walked up the driveway, his gun a comforting weight against his hip; the doorbell gave a hollow ring when he pressed it.

The door cracked open a moment later and a man peered out from behind it; his blue eyes were sharp, his mouth set in a nervous line. He looked normal, as most serial killers did. There was no insanity in his expression, no bloodlust, no lingering scent of death.

“Yes?” the man asked.

“Garret Jacob Hobbs?” Will asked.

The man blinked twice, nodded. “That’s me.”

Will held up his badge. “Will Graham, FBI,” he said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The next few events happened in quick succession. Hobbs’s eyes widened, comprehension dawning in them, and then the door was slammed. Will bit out a curse; the door hadn’t locked, but in the second it took him to spring forward and push the door back open he heard running footsteps, the slamming of a drawer, a small cry of fear.

His heart thudded in his chest. The sounds had come from the right towards the kitchen; he unholstered his gun, stepped around the corner, drew in a sharp breath.

Hobbs was standing with his hands up in front of a girl a few inches shorter than him—a girl who was slim and pale, with long dark hair and bright blue eyes. Those eyes were wide, now, and terrified, as she held a knife out in front of her.

“Step back,” she said shakily.

Hobbs smiled at her; it wasn’t an unkind smile. “Darling, you wouldn’t—”

“Step _back_!” she said again, and Hobbs obeyed, backing up until he was pressed against the counter on the opposite side of the room. “Now _stay_ there,” she said, and Will knew she was terrified and the last thing she wanted to do was to threaten her father but she knew it was a matter of life and death, and then somehow, inexplicably, that was enough to make Will hate Hobbs, more than the knowledge of any of his previous kills had on their own, more than even the combined knowledge of what he’d done to the eight other girls fallen victim to him.

“Abigail,” Will said quietly. “It’s Abigail, isn’t it?”

The girl glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide. She didn’t speak, but nodded once, just barely more than a dip of her chin.

“Lower the knife, Abigail,” Will said. He stepped forward, holding the gun out in front of him and pointing it at the Shrike. He was cornered against the counter, but still Garret Jacob Hobbs smiled at him; a wide, toothy, smile. Mocking.

Will could see the tremor in Abigail’s hands. “I-I don’t know…”

“Lower the knife,” Will repeated, “and step back towards me. Slowly.” His voice sounded calmer than he felt; his heart was jackhammering against his ribs, his blood rushing in his ears, and there was a slight shake to the finger over the trigger.

He wondered what would happen if he pulled it. Just a little bit of pressure would do it, and if Hobbs made any move at all towards him he could claim self-defense. He could even toss the gun to the side, lunge at the man himself and wrestle him to the ground with his hands around his throat.

Abigail took a step back. She was still holding the knife out in front of her, and Will knew she was terrified but that if her life were in danger she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

Maybe they could kill him together, then. Will could pull the breath from his throat while his daughter stopped the beat of his heart. He would deserve it for the things he’d done, for the lives he’d taken, for the families he’d torn apart. For his _own_ family that he’d torn apart, the daughter he’d betrayed and wanted to kill. It would almost seem justified.

It would almost be _easy_. Will’s breath was harsh in his throat; Abigail was frightened, the Shrike was cornered.

Will could do anything right now.

“I’m scared,” Abigail whispered, and Will wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to her father.

“It’s alright; I’ve got you, Abigail. The rest of the FBI is on its way,” Will said. “Just get behind me.” And he knew they were coming; they would have noticed that he’d left, and there would be no question as to where he would have gone. They’d be no more than a few minutes now.

“You could kill him,” Hobbs said to his daughter, and he was still smiling that infuriating smile. “Look at him. He’s right there. You’d just need to turn and slip the knife between his ribs. It would be so easy. Just like when we went hunting, darling, you know how to do it.”

“Shut up,” Will snapped.

Hobbs laughed. It was a dry sound; humorless, though Will knew he found humor in the situation. He seemed so at ease now that he had been caught, now that his fate was sealed. “Or you could kill her,” he said, turning to face Will, and he leaned back almost casually against the counter as if he weren’t trapped against it. “She’s got a knife, you’ve got a gun. We all know which one is faster. Just swing your arm around and tighten that finger; I know you want to. There would be nothing anyone else could do. Lucky you came when you did, too, right on time to catch her in the kitchen; who knows what would’ve happened if I’d gotten to the knife drawer first?”

“I said shut up!” Will took a step forward, his hand shaking, and for a moment he thought he’d actually pulled the trigger. He could hear the explosion of sound, the deafening pop; he could feel the spray of blood on his face and taste the salty, bitter tang hot on his tongue.

He’d wanted to kill before, when he was assuming the perspective of the killer. That feeling wasn’t new to him. But he was himself now. He was Will Graham, and he wanted to kill the Shrike.

And then Hobbs laughed again, leaned forward. “You just want so badly to get your hands around my throat,” he hissed. Then he smiled. “Or you could ask Abigail to kill me. Get rid of us both in one go, eh?”

Will swallowed, forced the shaking in his voice to calm, the tremor in his hand to still. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “And I’m not going to kill your daughter. When the rest of the FBI shows up, we’re going to take you into custody and Abigail under our protection. You will be tried and found guilty. Then the courts can decide your fate.”

He could hear the purring of engines outside, the crunch of gravel under tire. The slamming of doors as Jack and the rest of the team got out of the cars, shouting as they surrounded the house.

From the expression on the Shrike’s face, he’d heard it too.

A small smile spread itself across Will’s face. The man was trapped, powerless, and they both knew it. There were just seconds left to do anything, for Hobbs to lunge forward and fall back with a dozen bullets in him, for Abigail to sink her knife into her father’s chest, for Will to wrestle him to the ground and snap his neck.

Or to do nothing.

“Go outside, Abigail,” Will said quietly. “Slowly, with your hands up. They know you’re not the Shrike; they won’t hurt you.” He waited until she’d obeyed, until he could see her outside through the kitchen window wrapped in a shock blanket and stowed away safely in the back of an ambulance, and then he held Hobbs’s gaze and jerked his head in the direction of the door. “Now you. Hands up. Walk outside slowly. You make any sudden movements, I shoot.”

Hobbs’s smile was more like a grimace now. He walked forward slowly, deliberately, hands clasped behind his head. “I’m impressed,” he said quietly, pausing as he moved past Will. “I’d thought you might not be able to handle it. When you found me, when you told me your name at the door and I recognized you as the gifted profiler everyone’s been talking about, I’d hoped you could truly understand me. That you would be _like_ me, so you wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to kill. That’s how you found me after all, isn’t it? By thinking like me?”

“We found you because of the saltmarsh sparrows. Now move,” Will said.

Hobbs raised an eyebrow. “The sparrows,” he said, a note of surprise coloring his voice. “Interesting.” But he moved forward with his hands up, stepped slowly and calmly out of the house, put up no fight as he was cuffed, restrained, and shoved in the back of a car.

When the door slammed, Will let out a long, shaky breath. He expected to have felt light, to have felt relieved that the Shrike would soon be secure behind bars, but he didn’t. Instead, he could only see that mocking smile, as if the Shrike knew something he didn’t, as if the Shrike believed the he was still in control, that he would still win in the end.

It was unsettling.

“Will!” Jack’s voice jerked him out of his thoughts; he glanced over to see the other man walking towards him, a stony expression on his face. “Will, I explicitly told you to wait for backup. And you, in case you forgot, explicitly agreed.”

“I got him, didn’t I?” Will said bluntly.

“And if you hadn’t? You had no idea what you could’ve walked into. You knew Abigail was his next target, and you knew he was driven by a compulsive need to kill her. What would you have done if he’d attacked her—if he’d _hurt_ her as soon as you walked in? How would you have managed keeping her alive before the ambulance got here?”

Will clenched his jaw, looked away. “He didn’t.”

Jack made a noise of frustration. “And if _you_ had been hurt?” He shook his head. “The point is, you don’t know that you’ll always be right. We got lucky this time, thank God, but we might not always be. When I tell you to wait for backup, I need to trust that you’ll wait. Yes?”

Will exhaled, forced his hands to relax. “How was Abigail?” he asked.

Jack eyed him for a few moments, then chose not to comment on his lack of answer. “Shaken, but physically fine based on preliminary examination. She’ll be evaluated by a psychiatrist—I’ll ask Alana. I’ll be surprised if she isn’t traumatized by what’s happened, in which case she can stay at the psychiatric hospital, given that there’s nowhere else for her to go right now.”

“She has a mother,” Will said shortly.

“A mother who has been out of her life for twelve years. It’s uncertain that she’ll want to take her, especially once she finds out what’s been happening with the Shrike.”

“Abigail deserves a home.”

“I’m not arguing with that,” Jack said. “Believe me, I’m not. But she can’t go anywhere until this case is closed and she’s cleared. You know that, Will; she’s a witness, but she’s also a victim.”

Will grimaced. Her situation was partially his fault, after all. There was no arguing with the fact that having the Shrike behind bars made the place safer for everyone, and made the world safer for Abigail, but in doing so, Abigail had lost a father and a home.

Jack glanced over his shoulder, where the ambulance and several of the cars had started revving up and preparing to leave. “We’re good here. We’ll get everything packed up and head back to Quantico in the morning. I’ll let you know later tonight when exactly the jet will be ready, but I wouldn’t assume later than nine in the morning.” He paused. “I’d offer you a lift back, but you seem to have driven yourself on the way here.”

“I can drive,” Will said bluntly.

“You’ll be fine?”

“Do I look unstable to you, Jack?” Will asked.

Jack watched him for a long time, and then sighed and shook his head. “I don’t want to answer that, Will. I’m headed to the office; I’ll give Alana a call about evaluating Abigail and deal with the rest of the logistics. If you wanted to head back yourself, I don’t anticipate that I’ll need you for any of that.”

Will made a noncommittal noise. “Call me if you do.”

In the end, he drove himself back to the hotel. There was a light knock on his door about an hour after he’d settled back in; he opened it to find Hannibal standing outside.

“Good afternoon,” Hannibal said with a soft smile. “May I come in?”

“Um.” Will cleared his throat. “Yeah.” He stepped back, let the other man enter. He was tired and didn’t particularly want company, but Hannibal was better company than most.

“I was at the office,” Hannibal said. “Jack and the others arrived there about half an hour ago. He told me you had most likely headed back here and asked me to check on you.”

“Of course he did.” Will sat back down on the bed, gestured vaguely at the rest of the room. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you.” Hannibal pulled out the chair by the desk. “He told me you caught the Shrike and that his daughter was safe.”

“Did he mention that I was reckless and went in there myself before waiting for backup?” Will asked wryly.

“No.” Hannibal paused; he looked vaguely surprised. “Is there a reason you bring this up?”

“No,” Will said. “Frustration, maybe. I don’t know.” He looked away.

Hannibal was silent for a few moments; Will knew he was giving him time to speak, but there wasn’t anything he wanted to say. What _could_ he say, after all? That he’d hallucinated killing the Shrike while he was still out in the field pointing a gun at him? That he’d enjoyed the power over the Shrike’s helplessness and his daughter’s terror? That he’d _wanted_ to kill the Shrike, not as a killer whose perspective he was assuming, but as himself?

“I’m…conflicted,” he said finally. “I don’t know what to feel.”

“Sometimes saying your thoughts aloud can help you elucidate the feelings behind them,” Hannibal said.

Will swallowed, didn’t meet the other man’s gaze.

“A feeling of closure can also be helpful,” Hannibal said, when Will didn’t speak for another few moments.

Closure. Yes, closure would be nice, whatever that meant. Answers, maybe. Forgiveness over what he’d taken from Abigail. Certainty over who Abigail herself was—innocent, unwilling secret-keeper of her father’s crimes, or facilitator for what he’d done. Survivor, or accomplice.

Clarity over what he felt.

Will glanced at Hannibal. “I want to go back to the house,” he said. “This afternoon. Now.”

He’d expected Hannibal to ask what he wanted to do there, what he hoped to accomplish or find, but the other man simply nodded. Will was grateful for that, because he wasn’t sure himself what exactly he wanted to return for, or what the question even was that he wanted an answer to.

“And I want…” Will trailed off, took a shuddering breath. “I want you there with me.” He swallowed. “Please.” He had a feeling he’d need stability.

“I’ll drive,” Hannibal said. “And I’ll be there beside you.”

They pulled up to the driveway of the Shrike’s house a little more than half an hour later. The FBI had gone; it all looked deserted. Even the birds had left the trees. What remained was an eerie silence that felt like it stretched beyond the confines of the house and was blanketing the entire world.

In the silence, for just a moment, Will could hear the Shrike’s laugh.

Hannibal killed the engine and they walked up to the front door. It wasn’t a crime scene, so no tape had been put across it; it had been left unlocked and creaked lightly as it swung open. Will’s feet carried him into the kitchen and he stood there in silence, in the exact spot he’d been when he’d first pulled out his gun and pointed it at Garret Jacob Hobbs, and Hannibal waited quietly in the doorway for him to be ready to speak.

Will closed his eyes. In the darkness, he saw the man smile.

He opened his eyes again. Several minutes passed in silence.

“It looks different,” Will said finally. “Empty.” He turned to face Hannibal; his eyes flickered briefly to Hannibal’s eyes, then swept past him to stare at a spot on the wall behind him.

Hannibal didn’t comment on his lack of eye contact. “How are you feeling?” he asked quietly instead. They were alone in the house; Hannibal’s voice seemed too loud for the empty space.

“I don’t know,” Will said bluntly. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He felt nothing.

The Shrike’s face flashed in his vision; the patterns on the tile morphed into his eyes, his nose, his grinning mouth. Will was holding his gun out in front of him, telling Abigail that she could drop the knife and step away, telling her that they had everything under control.

 _They_.

No, there was no _they_. There was just Will Graham, gotten there a little too soon, his finger a little too happy to pull the trigger.

Would it have been so bad if he’d done it? Would it have been such a terrible thing if Jack and the others hadn’t gotten there on time? Will wondered what they would’ve found; Garret Jacob Hobbs dead with Abigail’s knife in his chest, stuck there out of self-defense, or Garret Jacob Hobbs cornered in his own home, bleeding out from the fifteen bullets Will had put in him, or Garret Jacob Hobbs, now nothing more than a corpse with Will’s hands around his throat—

There. There it was. The heightened pulse, the adrenaline, the rush. He could feel his fingers closing around Hobbs’s neck, tightening, squeezing, wringing the life out of him—

“What you just went through must be a lot to process. It’s normal to feel confusion or numbness,” Hannibal said, jolting Will out of his thoughts; he started, flushed, wondered if he’d given himself away. “There is no map telling you what you should or shouldn’t feel. Regardless of what your emotional reaction is, it should not be ignored for fear of judgment.”

A wry smile turned the corners of Will’s mouth. “I said I don’t know how I feel, didn’t I?”

“Don’t know or don’t want to say?” Hannibal asked.

Will glanced at Hannibal. “I think you can figure out the answer to that,” he said quietly. And it hadn’t exactly been a lie, really, because he really had felt nothing. But the lie came in his imagination; it came in the sickened rapture of the kill that was being drowned by righteous emptiness, in the aching numbness that smothered everything else that would overwhelm him, including the excited roar of his blood and the frantic pounding of his heart, growing ever faster and faster as if it was eating up every beat that Will’s hands stole from Hobbs’s chest, absorbing Hobbs’s very life and making it his own.

Hobbs’s body twitched under him; it seized, throat working furiously and mouth open in a soundless scream, hands scrabbling at Will’s forearms as he tightened his grip—

“I should feel good to have caught him,” Will said after a few moments of silence. It sounded unconvincing, even to himself.

“Your use of ‘should’ implies that it does not. It also implies that you believe there is a certain way you should be reacting in order for your reaction to be considered normal.”

“Isn’t there?” Will asked quietly.

“No,” Hannibal said. He paused. “But you made the world a little bit safer,” he said. “And you saved his daughter.”

“Yeah.” Will shoved his hands in his pockets, tried not to think about killing Hobbs. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? It’s nice, I suppose.” His voice rasped; he swallowed. “It’s nice,” he repeated, as if to convince himself that he did actually get gratification out of it, that he did actually feel good about finding the killer and catching him. “But what kind of life is his daughter going to have?”

“That’s not up to you,” Hannibal said. “You brought her out of a terrible situation; that in itself is a wonderful thing. We both know what would have happened in the end had you not intervened. You brought her to the lesser of two evils, if you will, though I understand it can be an uncomfortable situation to have to choose between two unpalatable options.” He paused. “How did you feel when you first walked in the room? Is that a moment that bothers you?”

Will swallowed. “You mean when I saw Abigail in a position to kill her father,” he said.

“Yes.”

Will swallowed again. “I felt…powerful,” he said quietly. He thought he should feel disgusted with himself just now, to have reveled in such a moment of horror. “Just like when I’m reliving a crime scene, but more intense. I saw Abigail in a position to kill her father, and I felt powerful,” he said, and he could feel the revulsion in the back of his throat now, but he could feel the thrill too; an excitement that tightened his muscles, heightened his breathing.

“You were in control,” Hannibal said simply, and Will nodded once, jerkily.

“For those few moments, it was just us,” he said. “Me, Abigail, and her father. And Abigail was frightened. She didn’t know what to do. But me? I could’ve done anything.”

“What would you have done?” Hannibal asked.

“I don’t know,” Will said, too harshly, too quickly. Again, it was a half-truth; he didn’t know what he would have done if given more time, but he knew what his options had been, and he’d known them then, too.

Hannibal was watching him; Will could sense his keen, dark gaze. It was calm, as always, and impassive. Not judging him for anything, just thinking, just listening.

“What would you _wanted_ to have done?”

“I don’t know,” Will said again, but it was too fast again, bit out almost before Hannibal had finished speaking, and he knew Hannibal saw through it, knew Hannibal had seen the lie barely holding itself together in the wake of his truth.

“Did you think of killing Garret Jacob Hobbs yourself?” Hannibal asked quietly, after a pause. And there it was again; the same impartiality, the same calmness.

It scared him a bit. Here Hannibal was, relaxed and neutral and expressionless in the face of death—no, in the face of the _possibility_ of death. And that was infinitely more terrifying; not of knowing that death would inevitably come in the end, as it would come for everyone, but of not knowing _when_ or _how_. It was almost worse than what Will knew he had felt; worse than the exhilaration and thrill and excitement that was so unbelievably _wrong_ —

“Yes,” Will said quietly, and his voice croaked in his throat. “Yes, I thought about killing him.”

Hannibal shifted then; a subtle movement, but Will caught it. A slight movement towards him, a slight tilting of his head. _Interest_.

“Would you have felt better if you’d killed him?”

A skull-like face, skin stretched tight over bone. Jaws open in a soundless scream. Heart beating like the wings of a dying bird, trapped and starved of air by Will’s hands. Soft cartilage crunching under his fingers. Rage. Hunger.

Pleasure.

“No,” Will said, and he wanted it to be true.

Hannibal paused. “This isn’t the first time you’ve felt like this,” he said quietly. “Though it may be the first time you’ve brought it up to me, despite several cases we’ve discussed in session before.”

Will swallowed, shivered. “No,” he whispered. “No, it’s not the first time.”

“What happened that time?”

A dry smile tugged at the corners of Will’s lips. “That time, I was looking at the Ripper’s files.” He huffed a laugh. “Surprising, isn’t it? Jack Crawford’s prized profiler getting off on the crimes of the most notorious serial killer of this time.”

There was a warmth in Hannibal’s expression, a gentleness in the lines of his face. “That may not be so surprising in the end. You found understanding with the Ripper as you found understanding with the Shrike,” he said. “And isn’t that what we all crave most? To understand and be understood.”

“Yeah, with a serial killer though?”

“A desire for kinship should not be shameful,” Hannibal said. “If you reject it, it should not be out of fear, but out of a calm assessment of your own values.” He paused, gave Will a gentle smile. “You asked me to come here with you because of that, did you not? To speak with me about this connection you felt with him.”

Will walked slowly towards the counter where Hobbs had been cornered. He stared at it for a long time, seeing Hobbs’s mocking, smiling face etched in the wood, wondered if that was what it was. The connection; the desire to kill.

“I don’t want to be a killer,” he rasped finally.

Hannibal hummed, tilted his head. “No,” he murmured. “I didn’t think you did.”

There was a long moment of silence. Will stood in the empty kitchen, listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall. No one had died in this house; its walls still held memories of lives so recently vacated their bounds, but it felt like death had made its claim there nevertheless.

The sun had begun to slip down the horizon by the time Will moved again. “I’m ready to leave,” he said quietly. His cheeks flushed lightly as he caught sight of the time. “Sorry this took so long.”

“No need to apologize,” Hannibal said simply. “I’m here for however long you need me.”

Will felt a clench in his chest.

“I can drive us back now, if you like,” Hannibal continued. His voice was quiet, patient, calm. Peaceful. Almost homely. It gave Will something steady to hold onto.

Will nodded, followed Hannibal out to the car. It was a half-hour drive back to the hotel; Bach played gently in the background as the sky darkened above them.

“Are you going to be alright on your own?” Hannibal asked, after he’d parked and they made their way up to the third floor where their rooms were.

Will hesitated. He’d be alright, yes; there wasn’t anything that had happened that he didn’t know how to deal with. He’d been in killers’ heads before, and he’d brought himself out. This should be no different.

The Shrike’s voice echoed in his head. _You just want so badly to get your hands around my throat_.

Hannibal watched him for a few moments. “Why don’t you come in,” he said quietly when Will didn’t respond, and Will bit his tongue and nodded.

“Would you like a drink?” Hannibal asked.

Will cleared his throat. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

Hannibal gave him a soft smile. He uncorked the bottle of red wine sitting on the small nightstand, poured it into two glasses standing beside it. He handed one to Will; his hand trembled when he took it, and the liquid sloshed dangerously close to the edge. It was a deep, dark red, and as their fingers met briefly Will saw his own hand on Abigail’s, her pale, slender fingers wrapped tightly around the wooden hilt of a knife. Then it was Garret Jacob Hobbs standing in front of them in Hannibal’s pale sweater and Will’s hand was on Abigail’s, and they were pushing the knife into the Shrike’s body as he stood there smiling at them, and his blood was leaving the wound in a spectacular arterial spray and collecting in Will’s cup and turning into wine. The glass slipped from his grip, now slick with blood; it fell in slow motion to the floor, shattering into thousands of razor-sharp crystals, and the wine spilled across the floor, staining the white rug and creeping under the soles of his shoes—

“Careful,” Hannibal murmured with a quiet laugh. Will blinked, and he was in Hannibal’s hotel room again, and the glass of red wine was in his hands, and it was Hannibal in front of him. He was steadying Will’s shaking hand with his own, and his touch was warm and firm; calming. Bringing Will back to the present. Stabilizing him, as he always did.

Will’s lips parted in a soft exhale. Another hallucination.

“Are you alright?” Hannibal asked, and Will could hear the concern deep in his voice. His hand was still on Will’s; clearly, he wasn’t confident in Will’s ability to hold the glass steady.

It took several tries for Will to speak. “Y-yes. I’m fine.”

Hannibal’s face was unreadable. “Was that another hallucination, Will?”

Will swallowed. He turned away, pulling his hand out of Hannibal’s touch, sat down heavily in one of the chairs by the desk. “A mild one. It’s nothing.”

“Hallucinations are rarely nothing,” Hannibal said quietly. He paused. “I don’t suppose you heard anything I said.”

“Um. You told me to be careful. My hand…my hand was shaking.”

Hannibal was silent for a few minutes. “I’m worried about your encephalitis,” he said finally. “Lessened control over your movements, hallucinations…those are both classic symptoms, both of which you experienced when you were first diagnosed several months ago.”

“I’ve been taking my medication,” Will mumbled.

There was another silence.

“I’d asked you how you were feeling, earlier,” Hannibal said. “You seemed not to have heard me. I assume it was when the hallucination began.”

Will swallowed. “I heard a voice,” he said. “Distorted, as if it were underwater. I couldn’t tell whose it was or what it was saying.” He glanced at Hannibal and then looked away again. “It must have been you speaking.”

Hannibal nodded once, briefly. “It must have,” he agreed.

There was a silence. “I…I’m worried,” Will said. “I’m worried that doing this for Jack is…affecting me. Beyond the crime scene. And in the crime scene, too, in a way it hasn’t before.” He paused, waited to see if Hannibal would say anything, continued when he didn’t. “I…I imagined killing him. The Shrike, I mean. I _wanted_ to kill him. And I’m still…just now…” He trailed off, stared at the liquid in his glass. Everything on the other side of it existed in a haze of red.

“You hallucinated killing him,” Hannibal said.

Will took a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

“How did it feel?” Hannibal asked.

“It felt…natural,” Will said, and he couldn’t keep the note of self-disgust out of his voice any more than he could keep out the reverence. “At the crime scene, or even right after, it felt…I thought that killing him would feel good, because it would make me feel powerful. But that must have been out of anger. I knew what he had done to innocent people, what he’d done to his own daughter, and I wanted…I wanted to exact justice on him. And at the time I knew that was wrong, I knew that wasn’t me. But _now_ , I…” He trailed off again, clenched his jaw.

“In your hallucination, when you killed Garret Jacob Hobbs, were you doing it with Abigail?” Hannibal asked.

Will nodded faintly. “It just… _happened_ ,” he said, and it felt like a terrible description but there was no other way to say it. There was no other way to say how his hand had fit so neatly over Abigail’s and how the knife had slid so cleanly between the Shrike’s ribs, how he hadn’t been driven by any particular urge to kill but that it had happened nevertheless, because it felt right to do in the moment, because he was _curious_.

“You said you’ve felt like this once before,” Hannibal murmured. “When you saw the files on the Chesapeake Ripper.”

“Yes,” Will said. “But the Ripper was unbothered by what he did. The Shrike felt guilt; he didn’t want to do what he felt like he had to. The Ripper had no such qualms. And I…I felt like the Ripper when I thought I killed the Shrike. I know that if the Ripper were to kill the Shrike, he would feel the same way I did.”

Hannibal’s eyes were on him. “You’re flushed,” he observed quietly.

Will took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes,” he agreed.

He felt Hannibal’s eyes sweep over his body, take in his dilated pupils, the heightened breaths, the restless hands. They both knew it was too soon for it to have been the wine.

Hannibal’s gaze was piercing. “Does this excite you?” he asked, and his voice was calm, calculating, clinical.

Will swallowed. He met Hannibal’s gaze, stared into the cold depths of the other man’s eyes. “Yes,” he said, and a faint, almost imperceptible smile spread itself across Hannibal’s face.


	2. Chapter 2

FALL

Garret Jacob Hobbs was kept at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane while the courts deliberated his sanity before his trial. Abigail stayed at the Port Haven Psychiatric facility, where she was working with Alana. Will went to see her frequently; he felt responsible for her somehow, even though she should have been no different from any other survivor. Hannibal went to see her too, sometimes with Will, sometimes without, and she seemed to get along better with him.

“I feel like a hostage,” Abigail said one day when Will came to see her. It was October now; she’d been there for a month and she’d snuck out a dozen times already. She’d head to Hannibal’s house since his was closer, and he’d let her stay the night, and he’d drive her back to the facility in the morning with a few words they all knew he didn’t mean about staying where Jack told her to.

“We’re trying to keep you safe,” Will said.

“So I keep getting told.” She paused, looked down at her hands. “But I don’t _feel_ safe. Home is where I feel safe, even though my dad was there. I still felt safe with him. I know what he did to the other girls, but he had never hurt _me_. Sometimes…sometimes I can’t help wishing that I could just forget everything that happened and move back. Have everything like it was before.” She glanced up at Will. “But everything he did…that’s not the kind of thing people can forget.”

“No,” Will murmured. He pulled out a chair, sat down across from her. “No, it’s not.”

Abigail bit her lip. “I’ve been talking to Dr. Bloom,” she said. “She says that I don’t have to end up like my dad. She said I don’t have to end up a killer just because of what he did.”

Of course she would say that. Abigail was sixteen, and despite what had happened, she still had her whole life ahead of her. There were parts of her father in her, for sure; she could be manipulative when she wanted to be, and she had a knack for lying. But lying and manipulation didn’t make serial killers, and she was still her own person.

Will reminded himself of that frequently.

“I want to see him,” Abigail said, when Will didn’t respond.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea—”

“I thought you’d say that,” Abigail said with a small smile. “But he still is my dad, you know. He’s family.” She bit her lip. “He’s the only family I know, and unless my mom agrees to take me after this all ends, he’s also the only family I have.”

Here it was again; the manipulation. But Will wasn’t sure if she was even aware of what she was doing; she would have lived under the constant influence of the Shrike, and it might just be natural for her.

“I’ll talk to Jack and Alana,” Will said after a long silence. “I can’t promise anything.”

“Not Hannibal?” Abigail asked, only half-joking. “I know he’d let me see my dad.”

Will felt a smile tugging at his lips. “I know,” he said. “And I know he’d find some way to convince Jack, which is why I want to talk to Jack _before_ Hannibal’s influence.” He paused. “What do you hope to get from seeing him?”

Abigail shrugged. She stood, walked over to a stack of colorful, square sheets of paper. She picked one, blue patterned with swirls of lighter green, brought it back over to the table, and began folding it carefully and deliberately. “Closure, I guess,” she said, not looking at Will.

Will huffed a laugh. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I get that.”

“I mean, would you feel any different? If your dad was just pulled away from you, no explanation other than that he’d killed and mutilated eight other girls who looked like you?” Abigail’s voice shook slightly as she spoke and her hand trembled; she re-folded the corner of the paper, creasing it correctly over the old line.

“No,” Will said. “I think, if I were in your position, I’d like to have a chance to see him again too.”

Abigail glanced up at him, gave him a small, uncertain smile. “You never say anything about your own family,” she said.

“I don’t have one,” Will said; it was blunt.

Abigail looked up at him again. “No one?” she asked. “Even when you were younger?”

“I had my dad when I was younger,” Will said. “Right up until the point I was around your age. Died of a heart attack. Mom was never really in the picture.”

“So you’re like me,” Abigail said quietly. She paused. “Without the serial killer part, I guess.”

“As far as I know,” Will said with a smile.

“And I guess my dad is still technically alive,” Abigail said, re-doing another fold of the paper. “But it doesn’t seem like it. I feel like I’ve lost him forever.” She bit her lip. “It hurts, you know. Thinking you know someone and realizing you don’t, that they’re so different from what you imagined that you can’t…you can’t go back.”

The paper was just taking shape now; a body, head, four legs. “Do you think seeing him will help with that?” Will asked.

Abigail shrugged. “Maybe.”

He watched her fold the paper. Her movements were precise but fluid; clearly, she’d practiced this many times before, and it was only a few more minutes before there was a small blue and green deer that stood on the table between them.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “May I?”

Abigail shrugged. “Go ahead.”

He picked up the deer, turned it over in his hands, looked at the intricate folds and details that captured its motion. She hadn’t drawn on eyes or a mouth and its face remained blank, but it looked alert, calm, at ease. The eddies of green on the blue paper gave it an otherworldly feel, as if its antlers were made of swirls of bioluminescent light and like the little sculpture was moving every time Will saw it from a different angle; clearly, she’d chosen this specific piece of paper for a reason.

“Hannibal taught me,” Abigail said as he set the deer back down on the table. “Well—not exactly; we learned it together. He said that having something to do with my hands might help me relax, and that the act of creating might help me deal with the memories. You know, the destruction of death and all that.” She paused, set the deer aside. She was calmer now, her voice steadier. “I think I want to learn how to make a fish next. Not one of those easy ones; something harder. I’ve seen pictures of ones with folded scales and everything. And then maybe I’ll make an eagle.”

“Thinking of making a menagerie?” Will asked with a smile.

“Maybe.” Abigail returned his smile; her eyes were brilliant flashes of blue. She was friendlier with him now than before; at first she’d been scared, and the knowledge that he was the one responsible for separating her from her father and taking her away from her home set an awkward, almost cold distance between them. But she smiled at him now; she looked at him with less fear in her eyes, and sometimes, when he was getting up to leave, she even asked him to stay longer.

“He says it might also keep me from getting too bored,” Abigail said. There was a playful smile that tugged at the corners of her lips. “He said maybe it’ll keep me here a little longer before I sneak out again.”

Will chuckled. “What do you even do at his place?”

“Sleep, mostly,” Abigail said. “I usually sneak out at night. Then he drives me back in the morning.” She looked around at the room. “It’s not so bad here during the day, I guess. It’s just at night. I get…bad dreams. I don’t like to stay here.”

“Hm. I don’t think I would either, if I had nightmares here every night,” Will murmured.

“He listens to me, too,” Abigail said. “I mean, Dr. Bloom is wonderful, but she can’t exactly come over when I have nightmares in the middle of the night.” She paused. “I listen to him, too. He told me you like fly fishing.”

“Oh? And how did that come up?”

Abigail shrugged. “Just talking about things I want to do when I’m officially let out of here. I…I don’t want to go hunting again. I don’t know how I would react to that now, considering what my dad did. But I miss being in the wilderness, listening to nature, accepting whatever she gives you in the moment.” She picked up the paper deer, adjusted one of its antlers, put it back down again. “I told him that, and he talked about you.”

“As an alternative to hunting, you mean?” Will asked.

“If that’s okay with you.”

Will chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that’s okay.” He glanced at the paper deer, almost felt like it was watching him. It almost seemed to nod, to smile at him, as if it was the Shrike thanking him for looking after his daughter, for taking her in because her father couldn’t.

Will swallowed, looked away. It seemed wrong.

“He…talks about you a lot,” Abigail said with a small smile. “He says he finds you very interesting.”

Will raised an eyebrow. Hannibal had told him that before, of course; it had been one of the reasons he’d wanted to start conversations with Will. But it hardly seemed like something that would be brought up in everyday conversation.

“I think it would be nice to be an eagle,” Abigail continued, almost wistfully, pulling Will out of his thoughts. She rested her chin in her hands and stared off out the window to her right. “Just fly away from everything. I could leave here, never come back, start a new life on my own…well, I guess I’d come back so you could teach me how to fish,” she added with a smile and glance back at Will. “But that would be on my own terms. I’d have some control over my life, instead of the universe rolling all the dice and dealing all the cards all the time. It gets tiring.”

Tiring, she’d said. Not frightening, not horrifying, not traumatizing. Not anything that Will would have expected a victim to say if they’d found out the person they were supposed to be able to rely on was responsible for murdering and mutilating eight other girls.

But that wasn’t her fault. He told himself she didn’t have to be her father. He told himself there was nothing in her that couldn’t be changed, nothing in her that he wanted—no, nothing in her that _deserved_ to be killed—as her father was.

“We’ll try and get you cleared to leave as soon as we can,” Will said. “I know it’s…frustrating…to be cooped up like this. I know it’s not exactly what you want to be doing.”

“At least I’m not confined to bed,” Abigail said with a wry smile. “I know that happens. They think you’re a danger to yourself or the people around you and they say you need to stay in bed for your own health. At least I get to walk around. And it’s a nice enough place, I guess, when I forget why I’m here. And I like the greenhouse. It’s the closest I can get to actual nature in here.”

“Once you’re out of here, we can go outside as often as you want,” Will murmured.

Abigail glanced at him. “My dad…my dad and I spent a lot of time outside,” she said quietly. “Out in the woods, hunting. Deer, mostly.” She swallowed, played with the ends of her sleeves. She did that frequently, and they were frayed now, loose threads trailing down over her fingers. “Dr. Bloom said she wants to help me find ways to enjoy it again without thinking of him. Do you think that’s possible?”

Will hesitated. “I think…I think it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be able to _not_ think about him. I think what Dr. Bloom means is that she wants you to be able to think about him without pain or fear.”

“I’m not…I’m not _scared_ of him,” Abigail said, and her voice was barely more than a whisper. “I know what he did, but I can’t be scared of him. Does that make me a monster?”

“No,” Will said. “You saw the side of him that was loving and kind, up until the end. That part of him doesn’t go away because of everything else.” _Even the Shrike doesn’t exist in black and white._

“Do you think he’ll be the same if I go see him?” Abigail asked.

“The same as before? I don’t know,” Will murmured. “Would you still want to see him if he wasn’t?”

“Yes,” Abigail said immediately.

There was a moment of silence, and then Abigail said, “When you talk to Jack about letting me leave, talk to them about seeing my dad too. Please.”

He looked at her, met her clear blue gaze, wide-eyed and sad and afraid and trusting, still trying to come to terms with what her life had turned into.

“Okay,” he said.

He met with them two days later.

“Absolutely not,” Alana said, when Will mentioned that Abigail wanted to see her father. “She’s still recovering from what he’s done—she’s traumatized. You can’t rush healing, and I’m worried that seeing her father will do more harm than good.”

“She’s the one who wants to see him,” Jack pointed out. “No one’s pushing her to do it.”

“We don’t always think rationally when we’re traumatized,” Alana said. “There’s possibility for avoidance tendencies, yes, but there’s also possibility for obsessiveness. An ability to stop thinking about the traumatizing moment and the events around it. And this trauma is something she’s going to need to move on from, not keep obsessing over.”

“Addressing the trauma can be more helpful for healing than suppressing it,” Will said.

“Placing her in the direct presence of its cause is not the way I’d go about addressing it,” Alana said sharply.

There was a tense silence.

Finally, Jack spoke. “Did she say why she wants to see him?”

“Closure,” Will said. “That’s all she said.”

“It’s unlikely that she’ll get the closure she wants from him,” Alana said. “She’ll want answers to questions that he may not be able to give; some of those questions might not even have answers. The most probable scenario is she leaves more shaken and confused than she came in. Not to mention the fact that we have absolutely no idea what he’ll say to her; he’s manipulative.”

“She won’t be unsupervised,” Will said wryly. “You or Hannibal could be there with her.”

“We could arrange that,” Jack agreed.

“Someone else being there is not going to stop him from saying what he wants,” Alana said.

“But they’ll be there to support her and temper anything he might say,” Will said. “Look. No matter what he’s done, he’s the only family she really knows, and he’s just been ripped away from her because of us. Believe me; I know how it feels to suddenly lose a parent, and it’s not nice. The least we could do is let her see him again if she wants to.”

There was a long silence.

“I think we should let her,” Jack said finally. “Not necessarily tomorrow, but sometime soon; I trust Alana’s judgment when it comes to determining when Abigail will be ready. My only other request is that either Alana or Hannibal go with her.”

Alana looked almost angry for a moment, but seemed to realize that Jack wouldn’t change his mind. She nodded curtly. “Fine. I’ll talk to her, let you know when she’s ready.”

It was the best Will was going to get, and he couldn’t deny that part of him agreed with Alana. Abigail needed to be able to move on from her father, but he was manipulative and possessive over her and there was no reason to believe that would have changed now; there was no telling what he might say to her and what effects those words would have on her. But she wanted to see him, and Will couldn’t deny that part of him also wanted to see her talk to him, to see if it was true that the Shrike hadn’t groomed her into what Will feared her to be.

It was a week before Alana tentatively said Abigail was ready. “Mostly out of her own insistence rather than by professional judgment,” Alana said when she told them. “She’s still showing signs of dissociation when she talks about him. If I were her parent, I would flat-out forbid it. But I’m not.” She looked at Will and there was a note of resignation in her voice. “She’s all yours. But she looks up to you and trusts you. Be careful what you do with that trust.”

Abigail had requested that both Will and Hannibal be there, so on the day she was set to meet her father, they met outside her room and headed to the institute together. She was pale, but her jaw was set in determination.

Her father was brought out to see her. He sat in what Will could only describe as a cage, wrists still chained together, a small, humorless smile on his face. For their safety, they were instructed to stay behind the taped line on the floor.

Abigail had been holding onto Will’s sleeve; she dropped it when she saw her father, stepped forward slowly to the line.

For a long moment, they just watched each other in silence.

“Hi, Dad,” she said quietly, finally. Her voice was soft, but it rang out clearly through the open space.

Hobbs’s smile widened. “Hello, Abigail.” His eyes shifted to either side of her. “Dr. Lecter. Special Agent Graham.” He gave them each a nod in turn, turned back to his daughter, leaned forward slowly in his seat. “What brings you here?”

There was a note of anxiety under all that casual bravado; Will could hear it in his voice, see it in the tension of his hands, clenched into fists just barely out of Abigail’s sight. He still loved her, and he wanted her to love him back, and he had no idea what she thought of him now.

Abigail swallowed. “I…I needed to see you.”

“Just needed, not wanted?”

“I needed to see you,” Abigail repeated.

Hobbs chuckled and spread his hands out as far as they could go. “Persistent as ever. Well, here I am.” He paused. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah?” Abigail’s voice shook ever so slightly; she tried to smile, and her lips trembled. “I wish I could say the same.” She swallowed again, fisted the end of her sleeves in her hands. She had wanted to be angry, but instead she was fragile. “I miss home. I miss what my life was, before you brought me into this. I miss being able to think of you and not also see the faces of the eight other girls you killed. I don’t miss you.” She glanced at Will. “They told me you killed them because they look like me.”

“What else did they tell you?”

Abigail bit her lip. “They said…they said you killed them so you didn’t have to kill me.”

Hobbs chuckled again. “By ‘they,’ you mean Will Graham, yes?”

Abigail almost flinched. Will stepped forward instinctively, then stopped himself. She was here because she wanted to be; this was a conversation she needed and wanted to have.

“He figured it out,” Hobbs said, still smiling. “I was right when I thought he’d understand me.”

Abigail drew a deep, shuddering breath. “But why didn’t you just kill me instead?” she asked quietly. “I don’t even care about why you wanted me dead in the first place. I just want to know why those other girls had to die too. I want to know why you left me alive, why you didn’t just hurry up and kill me so I didn’t have to live with this now. Do you know what it’s like to have to live with this now?” She’s gotten more and more emotional as she spoke and her voice broke at the end; her eyes were glistening. From several feet away, Will saw Hannibal give him a concerned glance.

“I love you,” Hobbs said simply. “I loved the other girls, too, but I loved you the most. You were the hardest to part with.”

“You ruined my life,” Abigail bit out. “You get to stay here in prison without worrying about the rest of your life. You know it’s over. You know they’ll convict you and the best you’ll get is life without parole. But me?” She was trembling now, and the wetness in her eyes spilled over in a clear line down her cheek. “I’m the one who has to deal with it. I’m the one who has the rest of my life ahead of me, but who has to deal with people looking at me and being afraid of me without knowing me, because they know my father is a serial killer and that’s enough for them to make a judgment. I’m the one who has to look at those girls’ families and tell them I didn’t want this, and they won’t believe me, because I’m your daughter.”

“Abigail,” Hannibal said quietly, taking a step towards her. She glanced back at him but didn’t move, and he took another step forward. “Abigail, we can come back another time.”

“No,” Abigail said forcefully. “No, I…I’m okay. Once I leave, I don’t want to ever come back.”

Hobbs tilted his head, and there was almost remorse in his expression. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“Then you should’ve just killed me,” Abigail said to him. “I know you wanted to, you should’ve just done it instead of killing all those other girls too, making them give their lives for me when I’m not worth any more than any of them—” She broke off, took a few deep, shuddering, too-fast breaths. They were loud in the silence.

“Abigail,” Hobbs said, and his voice was gentle.

“I came to say goodbye,” Abigail interrupted. “I came to see you because I couldn’t let the sight of you on the other end of a knife be the last thing I remembered of you. But I can’t…I can’t see you again.”

There was a silence. “I know,” Hobbs said finally.

“Just…just one last thing,” she said, and her voice was steadier now. “Just one last question.”

“You know you can ask me anything,” Hobbs said.

Abigail swallowed. “Did you do it because you thought I was like you?”

Will glanced at Hannibal, and the other man returned his gaze but didn’t move.

“I did it because I didn’t think you had reached the full potential of who you could be,” Hobbs said. “And I hoped that you’d be like me.”

Abigail held her father’s gaze for a moment, almost defiant, before she seemed to wilt and turned to face Hannibal. “I want to go,” she said quietly. Hannibal nodded once, and they left as they had come, walking side-by-side with Abigail between them.

“I’m not,” Abigail said, as they left the institution in Hannibal’s car, Hannibal driving, Will and Abigail in the backseat. “I’m not like him.”

“No,” Hannibal said. “You’re not.”

“I had to see him,” Abigail said. She was shaking lightly; Will reached out to take her hand. When she spoke again, her voice was small. “I don’t want to see him again,” she said.

“And you won’t have to,” Will said.

As it turns out, she wouldn’t have been able to even if she wanted to. Garret Jacob Hobbs was found dead in his cell two days later, a knife stuck neatly between his ribs. Suicide, Dr. Chilton said, because no one would have been able to get through the security of his institution to kill him.

Will was furious. “Maybe he should check on the security _inside_ the institution, if a prisoner is able to get a kitchen knife from the staff and stab himself with it,” he snarled, when Jack told him the news.

“Oh, believe me, I told him the same thing,” Jack said darkly. “We’re investigating it, both to confirm what he said and to look at his security procedures; until then, I don’t think this is something that you should mention to Abigail.”

Will agreed; she’d told her father that once she left the institution, she never wanted to come back. If she heard that he’d committed suicide just two days later, it would only set back her recovery if she felt that she was the one to have driven him to it.

“We’ll try and make it quick,” Jack said quietly after a brief pause. “It’s going to get out, sooner or later, and then she’s going to hear about it. I’d rather she heard from one of us than from the press. God forbid Freddie Lounds gets wind of the situation; she was trying to snoop around the Shrike cases before and she’s been dying to get enough information to write a follow-up article.”

“What about her mother?” Will asked, voice still biting. “Does she know?”

“She’s been contacted about Abigail’s condition, and she knows now that Garret Jacob Hobbs was the Minnesota Shrike. We’ll call her about his death this afternoon; she’s expressed willingness to take Abigail in once she’s cleared to leave.”

Will frowned. “And when will that be? A home—a proper home—is going to do more for her healing than being involuntarily cooped up. You know she’s been sneaking out already.”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. We need to make sure she wasn’t an accomplice to any of the murders,” he said.

Will drew back, narrowed his eyes. “What, you suspect her?”

“You don’t?” Jack’s expression was unreadable. “I’ve been talking to Alana. There’s something she’s hiding; we both agree. I know you see it too, even if you won’t openly admit it.” He sighed. “Look, Will, I know you feel protective of her—that you feel _responsible_ for her to some degree. I get that. But you have to remember that she’s a potential witness.”

“There’s no case,” Will said bluntly. “The Shrike is dead. There’s nothing to judge.”

“Unless he had an accomplice,” Jack said. “Think about it; the girls were all around Abigail’s age, no medical problems that would have put them in the Shrike’s path. The chances that he was able to find _eight girls_ on his own, who all looked so similar to his daughter, is unlikely. There’s a not-insignificant possibility that she helped him, willing or not.”

“It’s also possible she’s innocent.”

Jack shrugged. “But you know we can’t let her go without making sure we have all the information; you know it’s common procedure. And you can’t protect her forever.”

Will watched Jack for a long moment. “I know,” he said finally.

He did feel responsible for her. He’d torn her world apart, after all, finding her father and taking him away from her; in a way, in being the one to put Garret Jacob Hobbs behind bars, he was indirectly responsible for his death. It seemed only right to try and make it up to her, to provide her the father she’d lost because of him and the safety she had never truly experienced.

They ended up telling her about her father a week later. There had been no evidence of anyone breaking into the building or of anyone even potentially suspicious who had been cleared to enter, and there had been no evidence of anyone else’s DNA or clear fingerprints on the knife that had killed Hobbs other than his own, and several partial prints likely from a member the kitchen staff but too smudged to determine a match. Everything pointed suicide, and Will didn’t see any clear reason for it to have been anything else; Abigail had been right, after all. It was over for Hobbs as soon as he’d been caught. In the end it would be easier for him to kill himself than spend the rest of his life unable to complete the task most important to him.

She was silent for a long time after he told her the news.

“How are you feeling?” Will asked quietly, and Abigail gave him the faintest of smiles.

“You sound like Dr. Bloom when you ask that.”

“I hope that’s not a bad thing.”

Abigail shrugged. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

There was a silence before she spoke again. “I feel…I don’t know how I feel,” she said. “I wish it hadn’t happened, of course, but that’s…that’s not something I can change. But I’m less angry with him now, I think. Somehow knowing that he’s gone forever makes everything he did seem less bad.” She swallowed, glanced up at him. “I know it isn’t,” she said. “But it all just seems…unimportant.”

“Sometimes death can change our priorities,” Will said. “It’s easier to move on when there’s nothing tying you to your past.”

“Nothing except memories,” Abigail murmured.

“Nothing except memories,” Will agreed.

There was another silence.

“Do _you_ think I’m like my dad?” Abigail asked.

“No,” Will said immediately. “And even if I did, you can change what people think of you. You don’t have to be who the world thinks you are.”

“Easy enough to say,” Abigail said quietly.

Will smiled faintly. “You’re not a butterfly, Abigail,” he said. “A caterpillar will turn into the same type of butterfly that laid its egg, no matter what. But that’s not you. Your path isn’t laid out yet; there’s nothing inevitable about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Abigail bit her lip. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Me? No,” Will murmured. “I…I was taken out of the field a few years ago because I couldn’t pull the trigger.” He huffed a laugh. “Now they’ve asked me back because they think my ability to analyze crime scenes is valuable enough to outweigh the potential downsides of not using my gun.”

Abigail tilted her head. “Hannibal said you think like the killers you catch. How does that work?”

“I…look at the crime. I unravel it in my mind, look at all the pieces that make it up, put them back together using the evidence of what I see. Blood spatter patterns, freshness of evidence, the like. It’s ah, an overactive imagination, some might say.”

“Hannibal calls it pure empathy.”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Will chuckled. “I don’t know. Either way, it’s what I do for Jack.”

“And that helps you catch them?”

“It helps me see what’s important to them,” Will said. “It can give Jack a better idea of what to focus on when he’s analyzing the evidence, or point him in the direction of something he might not have seen before. And it helps us build a profile as to what type of person the killer is.”

“That’s how you caught my father,” Abigail said.

Will hesitated, nodded. “Yes.”

Abigail paused, then spoke quietly. “If you…think like the killers, does that mean you know how it feels to kill someone?”

Will stilled. “Maybe,” he said.

“How does it feel?”

Will swallowed, shifted his gaze to the bookshelf over Abigail’s shoulder. “It feels…powerful,” he said, and his answer was honest with her, as it was with Hannibal. “Killing is always an act of power, even if the killers aren’t thinking of it that way. It’s laying claim to another person’s life, saying that they’re lesser; it’s ending something that took so much to put together and that is infinitely complex. But it’s…it’s terrible. I come out of my head afterwards and I feel terrible to have felt powerful.”

“It’s ugly,” Abigail said.

Will huffed a laugh. “Yeah, you could put it that way.”

Abigail was silent for a few minutes. “I feel like I killed my father,” she said finally.

“Your father killed himself,” Will said. “You had nothing to do with it.”

“But the things I said—”

“It was his decision, in the end,” Will said. Abigail looked at him for a long moment, and then she let out a soft sigh and looked away again.

“I have his blood,” she said. “His genes. He raised me.” She swallowed, fingered the orange fish she’d been folding when Will walked in. “Nature versus nurture, but no matter how you look at it, he’s…” She trailed off, took a deep breath, started again. “He said himself, he hoped I’d be like him. That had to have come through in the way he raised me, right? He taught me to hunt; that’s got to be something. He was probably teaching me how to gut a deer hoping that I’d want to transfer it over to people too.”

“He’s not raising you anymore,” Will said quietly. He reached out across the table to touch her wrist, gripped her hands when she didn’t draw away. “He can’t manipulate you anymore.”

“Jack doesn’t agree,” Abigail said faintly.

“Jack isn’t always right,” Will said. “And it’s not just you; he’s staying objective, treating you like he would any other survivor. He needs to make sure he’s covered all his bases, no matter how improbable.”

Abigail glanced at him. “You said he’s staying objective. Does that mean you’re not?”

Will huffed a laugh, gave her hands a squeeze. “I’ll admit, I’ve gotten a bit more invested than I thought I’d be. I want…I want you to be safe, and I want you to _feel_ safe. You deserve more from life than what your father gave you.”

“So did all the girls he killed,” Abigail said. She was looking hard at the table now. “Did you…did you feel good when you caught my father?”

“I felt righteous,” Will said quietly. “Like I was doing something to correct something wrong in the world. Restoring balance, somehow.”

“And when you’d heard that he died?”

Will was silent for a while. Of course Hobbs’s death meant that Abigail had lost her father for good—a terrible thing to go through, if that father was a man you’d loved, no matter what he’d done—but he’d _wanted_ Hobbs dead. He’d wanted Hobbs dead when he’d been bringing him in, and he’d wanted Hobbs dead afterwards for what he’d done to Abigail, for the pain he’d caused her.

Yet there was something unsatisfying about it, as if the world had been robbed by the way he had slipped quietly into oblivion.

“It’s one type of closure,” he said finally.

“You sound dissatisfied,” Abigail said. She bit her lip. “You wanted justice.”

“The girls he killed deserve justice. So do their families. So do you.”

“And he escaped that by dying.”

Will hesitated. “It…feels that way, yes.”

“But you…did you want to kill him before then? When you caught him, I mean,” Abigail said. “He said you did. He said you wanted…that you wanted to get your hands around his throat.” She glanced at him. “Was that true?”

Will’s breath left him in a soft huff. “For a while, yes,” he said quietly, honestly.

“He also said you wanted to kill me.”

“He said a lot of things that weren’t true,” Will said. “That’s perhaps the most untrue of all of them.”

Abigail pulled her hands out of Will’s grasp; Will let her, ignoring the pang in his chest as she did so. “I knew,” she said, and her voice shook ever so slightly. “I knew about his murders. I helped him with them.”

_Just like we went hunting, darling._

There was a long moment of silence. Will thought he should have been more surprised, but then, Jack and Alana had both seen that she’d been hiding something. They’d said that he’d seen it too, even if he didn’t admit it. And he’d known that she was manipulative, that she’d felt guilt over what her father had done in her name but that she was also tired of it—tired, as if it was just a chore her father had told her to get done.

Jack had been right, and they’d all seen it, but Will was the one who had the confession.

“You knew he was going to hurt you when I showed up at your door,” Will said. “That’s how you knew to get a knife.”

Abigail hesitated, nodded. She looked afraid.

“And that’s how the Shrike was able to find all the girls,” Will said. “Because he didn’t find them; you did. Anywhere you went, whatever you did, you would be on the lookout for girls that looked like you. You’d befriend them, earn their trust, and then, when you got them to your father, he killed them.”

Abigail was pale. “I didn’t…I never was the one to take their lives. I didn’t touch them.” She swallowed; her knuckles were white. “But I know it’s still because of me that they’re dead. I as good as killed them.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then she glanced at Will. “Are you going to tell Jack?”

“No,” Will said, after a pause, and he wasn’t sure what made him say it.

She still looked uncertain. “Are you…are you going to kill me, like you wanted to kill my dad?”

“No,” Will said again. He held her gaze. “You deserve more than death, Abigail.”

He told Hannibal about their conversation during their next session, and Hannibal tilted his head when he mentioned Abigail’s confession. “You told her you wouldn’t kill her, but you don’t believe that.”

“Oh, don’t make me sound so terrible,” Will said. “I know I wouldn’t kill her.”

“But we both know it’s more complex than that.”

Will swallowed, looked away. “I…I wouldn’t kill her,” he said. “I wasn’t lying about that. I know she did what she had to in order to survive; it was her or the other girls. But…yes, it’s more complex than that. There’s a part of me that is afraid of the part of her father that’s still in her. Jack sees it; it’s why he thinks she helped her father with the kills. He’d be right, of course, but he has no proof right now. Alana sees it too.”

“You know she could grow up completely different from her father, but you also acknowledge the possibility that she will be the same,” Hannibal said. “She may come into her own and realize that the only way she knows how to express love is by hurting or killing them.”

“Yes.”

“So she is a potential threat, but at the same time you care about her.”

Will gave him a wry smile. “I care about something part of me wishes to destroy. A bit inconvenient, isn’t it?”

“Life often is,” Hannibal said, mirroring his smile.

Will looked away, tightened his grip on the armrests. “Jack said her mother expressed willingness to take her in once she’s cleared to leave. Alana said she should be; no matter what we’re worried about, we have no proof that she’s a danger to herself or to others. And it’s the middle of the school year. She should be in school, or at least doing something to take up time during the day. She should be trying to live a normal life instead of being surrounded by people who think about killers for a living.”

“I do agree that she should move in with her mother,” Hannibal said. “The change of scenery will be good for her. Given that her mother is in Maryland, it would be close enough that you could keep an eye on her, but far enough away from Minnesota that it is unlikely anyone would know who she is or what her father had done.”

“She could actually live a more normal life,” Will said.

Hannibal inclined his head. “It’s no less than what she deserves.”

“And she’d have…things to do. Things other than sneaking out of here to your house, I mean.”

“Distraction,” Hannibal said, and he sounded amused. “And how does distraction work for you, Will?”

Will huffed a laugh. “Inconsistently.”

“Mm. Perhaps I can talk to her about better ways to cope when she needs to, though I have no doubt Dr. Bloom has already discussed several techniques with her.”

“I’m sure. She was adamant that Abigail not see her father until she was ready.”

“In the end, she may have been right,” Hannibal said. “Seeing her father may have further destabilized her and set back her healing process. At the same time, though, I believe it is important to confront the things we’re afraid of, especially when we are personally willing to do so.”

“I just want her to be able to leave this behind,” Will said. “Just…everything. Forget it all.”

“We are always shaped by our past, Will, whether we’re troubled by it or not.”

Will shook his head. “No, I mean…I don’t want her to feel confined by it. Like it’s set her on a predetermined path, or limited her.”

Hannibal paused. “You want her to feel confident that she is her own person and not the person her father wanted her to be, or that the world might think she is,” he said.

“Yes.”

Hannibal leaned forward slightly. “Not very much unlike yourself,” he said. “You have expressed concern over your ability to separate yourself from the minds of killers, to hold onto your individuality when their thoughts threaten to overwhelm you.”

“Garret Jacob Hobbs picked up on that,” Will said wryly. “The…ease…with which we might slip into killing—me and Abigail both. He tried to get us to kill each other, tried to get us to kill _him_. He said that he was impressed I’d been able to resist it.”

“But you did,” Hannibal said. “You resisted it, even if you admit that you wanted to give in. You didn’t kill Garret Jacob Hobbs at the house, you didn’t kill him in his cell. When Abigail told you about what she’d done, you didn’t kill her either.” He paused. “You must know that you are not a killer, Will, even if you are able to think like one.”

“I may have just released one into the world by not telling Jack,” Will muttered.

Hannibal tilted his head, clasped his hands together. “Not telling him what Abigail told you, you mean,” he said.

Will huffed a laugh, looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to do, Hannibal,” he said. “I want her to have the second chance at life that’s been given to her. I know what she did was out of survival. And yet…I’m terrified of what she might become.”

“Just as you cannot change the past, you cannot control the future, Will,” Hannibal said softly.

“But I know the guilt I’d feel if the Shrike’s daughter grew up to carry on his legacy.”

Hannibal was silent for a long moment. “The process of creating a serial killer is complex, and it’s not often that children of a serial killers become killers themselves,” he said finally. “I doubt you need to worry about Abigail becoming one, especially considering your profile of the Shrike; you said he was not insensitive. You said he was not a psychopath. Everything he taught her, everything he showed her, he did it out of love. When he said he’d hoped she would be like him, I believe he was referring to his capacity for love and what he would be willing to do for it.”

“But does she know that?”

“She may not need to,” Hannibal said.

“So you don’t think she’s anything like her father,” Will said. “At least, not in the way I worry about.”

“No. I think you worry because you’re projecting your own insecurities onto her,” Hannibal said.

“You think I’m projecting, huh?”

“Do you take issue with the term?” Hannibal asked mildly.

Will chuckled. “Not if that’s what it is.”

There was another moment of silence. “You still worry about your own mental stability,” Hannibal said finally. “But you haven’t mentioned any delusions or hallucinations recently.”

“I haven’t had any since the hotel room,” Will said. “Just—dreams.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Violent, usually has to do with someone dying. The usual.”

“Any better or worse lately? More or less frequent?”

“The same,” Will said. “Well—no, that’s not entirely true.” He looked away. “Abigail…she asked me if I’d ever killed anyone, and if I wanted to kill her father when I first caught him. I told her the truth. And I…I dreamed about her that night. After the case it was just her father, either me killing him or him killing me, or me killing someone else because he told me to. But two days ago it was Abigail. I was killing her father, and then…I was killing her.”

“Do you think this may be a reflection of your own fear of who she may be? Or a fear that someone else may hurt her because of who she is?”

“I don’t know. Both, maybe.” He hesitated. “I care about her, Hannibal. I feel more responsible for her than I should. I know part of it is because of guilt—maybe even most of it.”

“She’s a surrogate daughter,” Hannibal said with a smile. “And we are her surrogate parents. It’s natural that you feel protective of her.”

Will exhaled. “And I…I see part of myself in her,” he said. “You said I was projecting; maybe you’re right. But when she’s afraid of what she might be because of her father, I…I’m afraid of what I might be, if one day I slip too far into a killer’s mind and aren’t able to pull myself back.”

“You want her to be good because it means you can be good, too,” Hannibal said.

“The Shrike got into my head,” Will said. “Even after I caught him, he was still in my head. Abigail worries about the same thing, that his blood and the way he raised her are enough to turn her into a monster even now that he’s dead. If she’s free of him, and she _knows_ that she’s free of him, maybe it’ll be the same for me. Or the reverse, if I get rid of him before she does.”

“In a way, she is a representation of yourself,” Hannibal said.

Will hesitated. “You could put it that way, I guess.” He paused; his gaze rested on a small painting on the wall over Hannibal’s shoulder; a golden eagle taking flight in a blur of wind and feathers. “Is that new?”

Hannibal followed his gaze. “Yes,” he said. “Thought a slight change of décor would be nice.”

“Mm.” Will was still looking at the painting. “Abigail said she wants to fly away like an eagle.”

Hannibal inclined his head. “She’s said the same to me; that’s partly what inspired me to add that painting. She was working on folding a bird the last time I saw her; has she finished it?”

“Not that I saw,” Will said. He huffed a laugh. “She said you were the one who taught her origami.”

“And that you’ll be the one to teach her fly fishing,” Hannibal said.

“You talk to her about me,” Will said, echoing Hannibal’s smile. “Do you usually do that with your patients?”

Hannibal’s smile widened in amusement. “You’re not my patient Will, not officially,” he reminded him. “And while I do not discuss my patients with others, it’s not unheard of to talk about your friends to other people, is it?”

Will met Hannibal’s gaze; it was clear and even. Genuine. “No,” he said. “Though I wasn’t quite aware that we were friends. I didn’t think that was a line people typically crossed with their psychiatrists.”

“Will—”

“You’re not my psychiatrist, I know,” Will said, but there was no heat to his words. He paused, looked contemplatively at Hannibal. “Friends, then,” he said.

Hannibal still looked amused. “Yes,” he said.

Abigail moved in with her mother two weeks later. Will took her fly fishing the day before she left, three days after Jack and Alana told her that her mother wanted to take her and that she was free to go, if she wished. She wasn’t moving very far away, but Will felt almost empty without her there, without being able to visit her every day; it felt quiet, almost dull.

But she would be better off that way.

She deserved better than death.


	3. Chapter 3

JANUARY

It was January when the next case came. It was a man named Daniel Cates, and he was killed and displayed in the woods not far from Will’s house; a fact that didn’t bother Will quite as much as he thought it should. Cates was of average height, average build, and average in pretty much all other respects; a rather insignificant man originally from Detroit who turned out not to be so insignificant when the FBI found out that he had been an avid birdwatcher with a passion for sparrows. He’d been found by a hiker early that morning and his identity matched to a man who had been on a missing person’s list for several days.

“I don’t want to be the person to state the obvious, but what is it with the birds?” Price asked. “First the Shrike, now this guy…” He gestured vaguely at where the man’s lungs should have been, where instead there were two roughly lung-sized and lung-shaped glass flasks half-filled with fluffy feathers.

“And the same fascination with organized displays,” Zeller added with a frown. “Our killers are getting more and more artistic.”

“It’s like the killer is the Minnesota Shrike come back again,” Jack said darkly. He was standing next to Will and they were both standing next to Daniel Cates’s bodies—because there were several of them. Four, in fact, each of them partial, each of them strung up in a beautiful, horrifying display of anatomy and precision. Will ran his eyes over the bodies, took in the scene, felt stories and reasons and history weave together in his mind. He thought of a particular set of files from years ago and felt the papers rustle through his memory.

A display; an exhibit; a show. Theater.

A bit of satisfaction. Ah yes. What he’d been waiting for had finally returned, and with it came the definitive answer to the unasked question: dead, or retired?

Jack glanced at Will; Will saw it out of the corner of his eye. “But it’s not the Shrike.”

“No,” Will agreed. “We both know the Shrike is dead.”

“So is this meant to honor him?” Jack asked. “In some sick, twisted reference to sparrows and birdwatching?”

A wry smiled turned the corners of Will’s mouth. “No,” he said. “A killer such as this would never even think of stooping that low.”

“So you have an idea of who this is.” It wasn’t a question.

“I think you do too,” Will said evenly, and turned to meet Jack’s gaze. Oh, yes, he knew who this was now. ( _Dead, or retired?_ The answer was, of course, neither.) There was a pause. “I might have been out of the field by then, but I saw the files, and everyone knew then, and everyone remembers now.” There was another pause, and when Will spoke again, his words were deliberate. “Everyone remembers how the Chesapeake Ripper killed.”

Jack’s expression was unreadable.

“He’s back,” Will said, and felt an inexplicable rush of giddiness and excitement as the words left his mouth, and then he was sick with disgust at his own reaction. When he spoke again, he could hear that bitterness dripping from his mouth.

“Look here,” he said, and stepped forward to point at the second body. “The first sign; there’s something missing.”

“The lungs,” Jack said.

“The lungs,” Will agreed. “Removed with surgical precision. And the rest is written in the detail of the displays. The Shrike wanted to honor his victims because he wanted to apologize to them, even if what he did was because of an irrepressible impulse. He hated that he needed to do what he did. There was dissonance in the harmony of his kills, and that betrayed the conflict within. But the Ripper never needs to apologize to his victims. He wants to put beauty into his kills, but he is above apology. The Ripper is indifferent to guilt because he has already accepted that part of himself.”

“The Ripper puts everything where it is because he wants it to be there, not because he necessarily _needs_ it to be there,” Jack suggested, and Will nodded.

Jack was watching Will now. “What else do you see?”

“A cycle,” Will said. The feverish thrill was coming back again, stronger than it had been with the Shrike; the delight in the kill, the euphoria in finding the meaning. The joy in understanding and being understood. “Skeleton, organs, muscles, skin. Winter, spring, summer, autumn. You can tell by the way he’s arranged them; the bones have been splintered and arranged like bare tree branches in winter. The lungs have been replaced by two glass flasks filled with bird down, representing the season when birds start to sing again. There’s another meaning in that, too—the Shrike has preoccupied us for too long. He’d stolen the Ripper’s voice, so the Ripper stole this man’s voice in turn. And then here,” Will continued, pointing to Daniel Cates’s muscles frozen in mid-stride. “The meat has been scorched with fire. Burnt by the heat of the summer sun. Smoked. And then there’s autumn. He’s freeze-dried the skin, made it crisp and thin like dying leaves. It’s fragile and delicate but beautifully pale, and shaped so that you wouldn’t know it was hollow inside unless you looked into the eyes.”

“The cycle of the seasons,” Jack said. “Alright, I see it. But then there’s the positions the Ripper’s put the guy in; it’s like he’s running. I don’t suppose he means that Cates was literally running from him, does he?”

“No,” Will said. “I doubt the Ripper has any real personal conflicts that he’d let on—none that would go beyond normal human interaction, at least. He’s an intelligent psychopath; he’ll be charming, polite in everyday life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed Cates for no other reason than that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s put Cates into a run cycle for a different reason than personal anger.” He paused, frowned, looked at the bodies. Distantly, he was aware of Jack waving the other agents out of the area.

He needed to get into the Ripper’s mind. He needed to _feel_.

He closed his eyes, let out a soft breath from between parted lips, let himself relax and slip away into the past, into the Ripper’s thoughts. They lapped at him gently like the waves of a calm ocean, luring him in deeper and spilling their secrets into him.

The surroundings fell away. Grass, dead and bent from footsteps, sprung upright again. The frost that had melted away in the sun returned with the night. In the background, a gentle ticking, the seconds going in reverse, turning back eternity.

He imagined the Ripper looking at Cates’s body—no, _he_ was looking over it. _Standing_ over it. Still alive, technically, but not for much longer. He imagined himself, already with an idea in mind, already knowing what he was going to do with it. He imagined himself taking out Cates’s still-heaving lungs, deftly, precisely, making sure he didn’t damage any part of the body any more than necessary. He imagined placing the lungs aside, skinning the body once it was dead, removing fat from muscle and muscle from bone and organs from the caverns that remained.

Space was a canvas, and Cates’s body was the paint. He was going to make _art_ from what was left, once he had removed his signature with the lungs. It was his gift. He would use four colors, spread elegantly and evenly across the metal rack, the gait of a wretched man the thread that bound him across the time of the seasons, sending him to his inevitable end, his frozen footfalls pounding out the heartbeat of his doom.

Cates was running, and it was hopeless. His fate was already sealed.

Will opened his eyes, and he was in front of Cates’s four bodies again, and he understood. “No, Cates wasn’t running from the Ripper; that’s not the message he’s sending here,” he said. There was a sickening delight in the pit of his stomach, now that he understood what the Ripper was trying to say. There was something poetic in it, and he couldn’t help the soft huff of laughter at the thought. Always something poetic with the Ripper, even ten years ago, even now.

“As you go from one end to the other, the displays are increasingly beautiful but also increasingly desperate,” Will said. “It’s going from the calm quiet of winter and bone all the way around to the empty hopeless gaze of autumn. He’s running as if he’s trying to escape something, but the fact that the run sequence stops halfway through shows that the escape is never completed. There’s no closure; he never gets what he’s looking for, and he certainly never gets away from what he’s trying to escape. He’s running, but he’s falling.” Will paused, and a wry smile spread itself across his face. “After all, ‘fall’ is another name for autumn.”

There was a long silence. It was cold, and frost had long started to collect on the pieces of Cates’s body hanging from the metal rack. The air froze the empty shell of skin, and Will thought that if he reached out and touched it, it would crumble and fall apart under his hands, cracking like parched soil and drifting to the ground like ash.

“It’s a message for us,” Jack said finally, when Will didn’t speak. It wasn’t a question; the man might not be able to look into the details of why a killer did what he did, but he certainly knew to recognize a message when he saw one.

“It’s a message for us,” Will agreed. “Or, more specifically, for me.” He swallowed, felt an uptick in his heartbeat. “He’s telling me that I’ll have fallen by autumn.”

A hint of alarm. “Fallen?”

“Changed in some way, I imagine,” Will said. “I can’t tell what exactly he means here, so unless I’m missing something of a message that’s complete here, it means he’s going to kill again for the purpose of communicating with me.”

“Why you specifically?”

Will glanced at Jack. “Because I’m your dog,” he said wryly. “I’m your bloodhound. I may not literally lead you to the bodies every time, but I lead you to the killer’s mind. We all know how much more lost you’d have been without me.”

“Mm.” Jack looked troubled; not at the thought of using Will as he had, but at the thought that Will had been singled out. He thrust his hands deeper into his coat pockets; his breath was a cloud of white in the cold. “And what about the other things that are missing?”

“The fat, you mean,” Will said.

“Yes.”

Will paused. The obvious answer was that the fat would have been unsightly, hanging pale and cold and hard from the muscle and skin, and the Ripper cared about beauty—he’d even removed most of the connective tissue from the muscles, after all, leaving only what was absolutely necessary to hold them together, and the bones were clean and pearly white, devoid of any remnant of muscle or tendon or ligament. Or it could be that it simply had no symbolic place in the display, each the four seasons having already been represented. But something told him that there was something else, another reason that the Ripper had removed the fat that had much more to do with practicality and use and specific purpose.

Will ran his eyes over the bodies again. It may have been a gift of art from the Ripper, and it may have been a message, but it was mocking Cates too. The arrangement of the work—the Ripper’s touch—had been done lovingly and carefully, but Cates himself was no more than prey, no more than a piece of meat strung up at the butchers.

 _Ah_. Bile rose in the back of Will’s throat. _A piece of meat_.

“You see something,” Jack said.

Will swallowed. He couldn’t quite stop the grimace that twisted his lips. “He’s using it,” he said, and he could taste the bitterness in his mouth. “He’s _cooking_ with it.”

If Jack felt disgust at Will’s words, he hid it well. “Ah,” he said, blandly.

There was a silence. There was a vague sense of horror in the back of Will’s mind. This wasn’t the first time something had been missing from the Ripper’s kills; in fact, that had become one of the hallmarks of his work. But when he’d looked at the Ripper’s files, he had always thought that it was so the Ripper would have a prize to keep; he had never considered the idea that the Ripper was removing pieces of the meat to eat them.

Now that he’d seen a Ripper kill in the field, he realized how stupid he’d been. The Ripper didn’t need to take mementos from his victims; he’d have known he’d had them conquered from the moment he’d laid eyes on them. The removal of anatomy was for purely practical purposes.

Jack cleared his throat and nodded at Cates. “Um. Change anything about your thoughts about the Ripper?”

“No,” Will said bluntly. “He’s still the same man. Still operating under the same reasons. This is just another piece of him that we’ve uncovered.”

“Mm. I see.”

There was another silence. A slight breeze swept through the bareness of the woods, wind whistling gently through the empty branches and stealing the white puffs of their breaths away from them. Out of the corner of his eye, Will could see Price and Zeller stamping their feet impatiently to ward off the cold.

Jack saw them too; he cleared his throat again. “Right. We should wrap things up here if we can. Anything else you see before we cart him off?”

There would be an autopsy, of course, even though the cause of death seemed obvious; other than the missing lungs and the stitches closing up the wounds that had been necessary for the skinning process, the only other imperfections in the bodies were the additional neat row of stitches through the skin down the center of the man’s chest, the sutures through the center of the chest muscles, the wires around his sternum. The Ripper had cut open the man’s ribcage and cut out the man’s lungs alive—presumably with some form of restraint; otherwise, there would have been more evidence of a struggle, and the removal of the lungs wouldn’t have been as clean. And then the Ripper, having taken his signature target, had taken the rest of the suffocating body apart.

Will was still looking at Cates. He saw the details in his history being rewritten; separating the body and tossing the lungs and fat into a separate, clean pile, where they would be washed and processed and later flavored and singed and simmered and rendered onto a plate; displayed, no doubt, just as beautifully as the rest of Cates’s body.

No, the Ripper didn’t need to take a prize; he wasn’t killing for the thrill or the excitement or even really the feeling of power. He wasn’t killing because of an intrinsic, animalistic need. He was killing because he _felt_ like it.

“Will?” Jack asked again, a little more gently. “Anything?”

The Ripper saw himself as above his victims. And then, here, he’d written a letter to Will in Cates’s body, a letter that was addressed only to him, and that only he would have been able to understand.

He saw Will as above them, too.

“Nothing,” Will said, and turned to meet Jack’s gaze evenly. “There’s nothing else.”

“Do you think you’ll be okay?” Jack asked as Cates was being carefully moved away, and Will understood the implied question behind his words. _Do you think you’ll be safe if you stay here?_ The Ripper had killed here, near his house, after all, and the message had been meant for him. There was no doubt that the Ripper knew where Will lived.

“I’ll be fine,” Will said. He wasn’t the killer’s target; he knew that. If the Chesapeake Ripper truly wanted him dead, he’d be dead already.

“Will.” Jack sounded a bit concerned now, even if it was hidden beneath layers of calm and poise. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Will, was the message a threat?”

Will’s mouth curved in a soft smile. There was threat in the kill, of course; there was always going to be threat in a targeted kill. But there was a bit of tenderness there too. He saw it in the way the Ripper showed him what he wanted Will to know, in the way his falling was written out so beautifully and carefully. “No,” he said, and he believed it. “It wasn’t a threat. I don’t think he means to hurt me, at least not in the way he’s hurt his victims. He means to test me, see how far I can go. He’s _interested_.”

“And that’s not threatening.” A tinge of disbelief colored Jack’s voice.

“Not to him. And besides, he gave me until autumn. That means there are going to be at least two more kills by then; we both know the Ripper kills in threes. I think, knowing that, you and I both need to realize that the more imminent threat is to whoever his next two targets are.”

“And if one of them is you?” Jack challenged.

The Ripper saw him as above the victims. Will knew the Ripper wouldn’t kill him.

“The bird feathers,” Jack pressed. “Why bird feathers? Why not something else representative of spring? Flowers, new shoots of leaves? If the Ripper has truly taken an interest in you as you said, and if he’s trying to test you, he’s going to be nudging at your mind, at your sanity. He’s going to remind you of previous cases and try and unhinge you. He’s going to make you feel like you aren’t safe.”

“Well he’s not wrong. I’m not safe,” Will said with a wry smile. “No one is safe in this field. Especially the birds,” he added with a chuckle. This made two cases in a row where birds had been featured—and two cases in a row where he still couldn’t quite nail down the use of the birds, even if he’d spoken confidently about them to Jack. There was still something he was missing about the Shrike’s sparrows, even if what he’d known about them had been enough to give Hobbs away; still something behind the scenes that Will couldn’t quite put his finger on. And then there was what Jack had brought up about the Ripper’s use of the feathers; something about the Ripper trying to make Will feel unsafe didn’t seem quite right, mostly because Will didn’t feel any more unsafe than he already had before Cates’s body had been found.

No, there was something he was missing about both of them, something beyond the Ripper’s bitterness at the Shrike, and he felt like it should have been staring him in the face.

Jack sighed, bringing his mind back to the present. “I trust that you understand the Ripper’s mind better than I do. I know that you haven’t made mistakes before; if you say he doesn’t mean to hurt you, I believe that. But I want you to understand that just because his intention isn’t to hurt you doesn’t mean that he can’t.”

“I’ll be fine, Jack,” Will said, and made an effort to hold Jack’s gaze. “If the Ripper wanted me dead, he would’ve done it already, and he wouldn’t have given me another eight months if he wanted to kill me this soon. Worry about finding and protecting his next targets; don’t worry about me.”

“Alana’s been telling me every reason I _should_ worry about you,” Jack muttered. “Says I’m pushing you too far. But you’d tell me that, yes?”

“If I told you, would you listen?” Will asked dryly.

Jack hmphed, and then gave in reluctantly. “Fair point. Alright, you win. Just be careful. If something happens to you, you’ll have me to answer to.”

A faint smile curved the corners of Will’s mouth, and he nodded once.

The Ripper was interested in him because of his mind, and even if he would seek to claim the object of interest, he would never seek to destroy it. That would go against everything he’d demonstrated so far. Instead, he’d try to get close, circle in like a curious predator that would come ever closer without striking just to see what its prey would do.

Will was interested in the Ripper, too.

Will would let him.

Will didn’t know what exactly brought him back to the crime scene several days later. He knew he wasn’t actively looking for the Ripper, and he knew that he wouldn’t have found him even if he was. They would meet when the time came that they both felt it was right.

Perhaps it was to relive the crime. He understood the Ripper, after all; he knew what the Ripper had done. He’d felt the kill just as the Ripper had. Perhaps he wanted to get as close to the source of Cates’s death as he could and figure out the mystery of the birds, to answer the question that had been haunting his thoughts since he’d seen that girl impaled on a regal set of antlers with a sparrow stuffed down her throat.

Or perhaps it was because he liked it.

He felt sickening twist in his stomach as he thought of it—the feeling of _liking_ the kill. That couldn’t be it, could it? He told himself that he was just getting in too deep, pushing himself too far just like Alana had warned Jack he was doing. He told himself that it was just because he was losing touch with who he was, that the minds of the killers he entered had struck back, that the exchange of thoughts and feelings had been two-way. He told himself that it was because of stress and his encephalitis that he was thinking like the killers, and not because there was something deeper inside himself that he was afraid to unveil.

Will stepped around a dead bush, its branches bare and cracked and dry and bent; snow crunched underfoot. The land looked so dead, but it was so alive. He could feel it, the hum of the earth’s blood under the frozen soil, the slow beat of her heart shaking the trees, the gentle exhale of every breath raising clouds that covered the moon.

Ah, yes. Even here in winter in the dead of night in the grave of the forest, there was life.

He thought about Cates. He thought about how he would have found the Ripper just as a rabbit finds the fox right before its teeth sink into its neck. He wondered how it would have felt.

The Ripper would have killed him with his hands. Paralyzed by expertly woven rope, perhaps, but the restraint hadn’t been what had killed him. He would still have been able to feel everything, the Ripper’s hands laying his helpless body down, the Ripper’s hands baring his skin, the Ripper’s hands _inside_ him. He would have been able to feel the Ripper’s touch as his life left his body and seeped back into the land, as his soul left his chest to be reborn on the wind, to fly east to the sea and up to touch the sun and sink down into the inky caress of the waves.

The Ripper would allow that. The Ripper knew better than anyone the life that had lain in a slaughtered pig.

Only about half a mile away now. About a twelve-minute walk across this terrain, in this dark, the waning moonlight just enough to peek through the branches and light his way. Distantly, as Will picked his way around a fallen tree, he wondered what the Ripper would have done to the Shrike. He wondered, if he’d been the Ripper that moment he’d stepped into Hobbs’s house instead of Will Graham, if he would’ve marked the Shrike as dead right then and there.

Perhaps that was why Hobbs had killed himself, Will mused. Death by his own hand would have been preferable in every way to facing the Ripper’s wrath, for there would have been no beauty for the Shrike, no shrine to honor the man who had stolen the Ripper’s voice. There would have been a mocking display, even less dignified than what had been done to Cates.

Perhaps he would have removed the Shrike’s throat. Perhaps he would have impaled him on antlers like the Shrike had impaled his last victim, except these antlers would have been even more magnificent than the last. Perhaps he would have turned the Shrike’s face into the face of a mockingbird that steals songs from others, to show the world that the Shrike had nothing new to offer, that all he did was try to do what he could never hope to even come close to achieving.

Or perhaps he would have done what the Shrike had done to himself in the end; slipped a knife neatly between his ribs so that its point came to rest in his heart. It was quiet, quick, peaceful. Neat. A fitting end to a butcher’s life.

It wouldn’t be long now. Will could see the clearing just ahead; a natural dearth of trees where Cates had been displayed like a masterpiece, standing alone and unadorned in the center of a room, speaking for itself. He could almost smell the tang of blood in the air like a sweet, metallic aftershave lingering after its owner has left the room; just a wisp of memory, a small carving in the wall to remind passers-by that he’d been there.

His steps quickened. Something told him that he’d find something there, that there was something to be understood and was waiting for him to unearth it. There was a steady pounding rising in the back of his head now; not quite pain, but an uncomfortable pressure. For the briefest of moments, his vision blurred. And then he stepped forward, through the break of trees, and stopped.

There was a creature in front of him.

He had never seen anything like it before. It was big—bigger than any human Will had ever seen—and looked like a strange mix between man and elk and hawk, with inky black skin and two magnificent, regal antlers at the top of its head. It had two large, unblinking black eyes and seemingly no mouth, as if it were wearing a mask, but there was blood where its mouth should have been from when it had been drinking from a body half-hidden beneath it. A pair of wings sprouted from its shoulders, white and black and tawny and unambiguously powerful. A hawk’s tail connected smoothly to the base of its spine, fanning out over the snow.

It lifted his head, and Will’s breath caught in his throat. It had no pupils, no way of betraying where its gaze rested, but there was no doubt that it had seen him. It hissed, the feathers on its neck and back bristling and wings opening to arch over its prey, and a slit opened in the mask of its face to reveal a row of sharp, wolf-like teeth.

Will couldn’t move. There was no way that what he was seeing could be real; there was no creature that existed on earth which looked like it. But here it was, crouched over the intact body of a man who could only be Daniel Cates, made whole again, drinking his blood from a slit in his throat.

It rose. It looked so skeletally humanlike, so desperately _alive_ under the feathers and antlers and ink-black skin stretched tight over bone, but still, somehow, everything about it seemed impossible. Will still wasn’t breathing, and he could feel a burn beginning in his lungs, but he couldn’t force himself to move. It was like the creature had held him captive, paralyzing him with its gaze.

 _You’re beautiful_ , Will thought, inexplicably, and the feathers rustled.

And then it rushed him. It seemed to release him as soon as it moved and he stumbled backwards with a cry, tripping over a root that hadn’t been there before and falling, scrambling backwards as fast as he could in the snow and tangles underneath it, but in a blur of black and feathers and claws it was on top of him, pinning him between it and the trunk of a tree.

Will’s heart hammered wildly in his chest, his breath coming in short, harsh, fast gasps.

The slit opened up in the creature’s face again, its mouth a slash of red against the darkness. It snarled; a low, rumbling noise that shook Will’s bones. Its teeth glistened in the moonlight—too sharp, too clean, too white. For a few tense, heart-stopping moments, Will thought it was going to sink its fangs into his throat.

 _I wasn’t going to hurt you_ , Will wanted to say, but he couldn’t make himself move. He could feel its breath misting over him; hot and dry and scentless. It snarled again, moved even closer without actually touching him, wings arching up above him and blocking out the moon. It held him there, frozen in that position, for what felt like an eternity.

And then it released him.

Almost as quickly as it had struck, it had moved away. It darted backwards, light and catlike despite its size, its left wingtip dragging in the snow as it picked up the body and flitted into the shadow of the woods. It left no tracks, and then it was gone.

Will didn’t know how long he lay where it had left him. He was still struggling to breathe, as if the creature’s physical presence had gone and left a crushing weight on his chest in exchange. His heart stuttered, its beats faint and fast and uncertain; a desperate sparrow beating its wings against the suffocating throat closing around it.

He forced himself to his feet. He blinked hard several times, passed his hand over his face, started backwards and then stumbling forwards again because that was impossible, the creature was impossible, what had happened was impossible. (And yet, there was still a stain of red in the snow in front of him.)

Without thinking, he walked forward, haltingly, coming to a stop over the red stain sinking into the landscape.

There were no tracks around it. It was as if Cates’s body had been dropped there, drained of blood, and then vanished. The creature that had taken it was too large to not have sunk in and left tracks, even in snow so wind-hardened that it had turned almost completely to ice, but Will had seen it run with his own eyes.

That was strange. He’d seen it run.

“Why didn’t you fly?” Will whispered, as he crouched down by the spot it had been. It was blood in the snow, and the ground had clearly been disturbed where he’d seen the body lay. Here, the trees were sparse enough and their branches bare enough that with its power, the creature could have easily climbed to the uppermost branches and taken to the skies.

But it had run instead. Will closed his eyes, remembered the spreading of its wings, remembered the almost gliding motion over the snow as it had retreated, bounding over the tangles of roots and dead shrubs like a cat.

 _There_.

The answer lay in the details, as always. The left wing had dragged, and several of the feathers had been crooked or missing. Most importantly, the angle that the wing had spread was wrong.

Will’s breath left him in a soft huff. Its wing was broken.

He felt a pang in his chest then, as if the creature had taken his heart in its talons and squeezed it, piercing through thick walls of muscle with its claws and drawing his life’s blood from his body.

“Your wing was broken,” Will said aloud, and he stood and looked at the darkness between the trees where the creature had disappeared. He didn’t know where it had gone or if it had any intention of coming back, but he refused to think about the implausibility of its existence. To him, it was as real as the man the Ripper had killed and whose body Will had seen strung up in pieces like it was running away to hellish paradise. So he watched the empty blackness it had left in its wake and promised himself that he would find it, and he would fix it, and he would do everything in his power to help it fly again.

When he finally turned around and headed home, a name had made itself prominent in his thoughts. He tasted it, felt the movement of his lips and tongue around it, felt its deadly, creeping promise ringing through his ears and sifting through his mind, surrounding him, entwining him, already making itself a part of him.

 _Wendigo_.

“What would you like to discuss today?” Hannibal asked, when Will found himself in the psychiatrist’s office two days later.

Briefly, Will thought of the Wendigo. Its black, black eyes burned through his mind, as if it could see straight through him, and its broken feathers seemed to rustle. It seemed to shake its head, and Will felt a flicker of amusement. What could he say, after all? That he saw a creature that he knew couldn’t possibly exist? That he believed it was real, even if it seemed impossible? That he felt like the Wendigo was the Ripper, even though he knew that it made no sense?

“I want to talk about the case,” Will said instead. “The one with Garret Jacob Hobbs, I mean. The one that led us to Abigail.”

Hannibal tilted his head. “That case was solved. _You_ solved it.”

Will grimaced, tightened his grip on the armrests of the chair. “Maybe.”

“Do you think you made a mistake?”

“No. We definitely got the right guy, if that’s what you’re asking.” Will shook his head, wrenching his thoughts away from the Wendigo, where they had strayed again. It was crouching over the body of the Ripper’s most recent victim, and for a moment, Will saw himself lying ripped apart in the snow.

“Then what still troubles you?”

“The birds,” Will said immediately. “They led us to him, but there’s something that still feels… _off_ …about them. Something that’s felt off since we used them to find the Shrike.”

Hannibal leaned forward slightly in his seat; there was something in his expression that Will couldn’t read. “You think you found him too easily,” Hannibal said.

“Exactly.” Will met Hannibal’s gaze; the light cast strange, angular shadows over the other man’s face, and his eyes were almost black. “Everything seemed to fit the narrative; Hobbs was still perfecting his style, still figuring out the best setup. He was trying it out with other girls, and he _knew_ he was still trying it out. He must have found, or known, that the sparrows symbolized rebirth. At the time, we thought that the sparrows appeared at that particular moment either out of guilt that overwhelmed him and demanded an outlet, or because they were part of the last step in his metamorphosis, or a combination of the two.”

“The last time you spoke about him, you seemed convinced that Garret Jacob Hobbs was not insensitive, and that he thought he was doing the best for the girls he killed,” Hannibal said.

“And that remains true.” Will thought about the kills again, the tenderness with which Hobbs had arranged limbs and hair, had cleaned the skin of undesired blood. He knew Hobbs would have wanted to apologize to them at the same time as he would have wanted to honor them, as he did his daughter. “When the sparrows appeared, it was his way of helping his victim be reborn, honoring her and her alone because she was the most significant,” Will continued. “She was the one who was perfect, who gave him the courage to go after his true target because he knew what he had to do with her now.”

“And at the same time, that was the last part of his metamorphosis.”

“Yes. Or so we concluded,” Will said.

A small smile crossed Hannibal’s face. “But it was too easy. You’re asking yourself, why the _saltmarsh_ sparrow? What’s so special about that one? It’s endangered; maybe he chose it to represent how his victims were special to him. But there are other endangered sparrows that he could have chosen from, and certainly sparrows that would less easily lead you to him.”

Will huffed a laugh. “You read my mind, Hannibal.”

“I am a psychiatrist, even if I’m not technically yours,” Hannibal said with a smile. “We are trained to understand thought patterns, and I like to think I understand you better than most people.”

Will looked at him. “Do you mean you understand me better than you understand other people, or that you understand me better than other people understand me?”

“Both,” Hannibal said.

There was a silence, during which Will held Hannibal’s gaze. The other man’s expression was mild, but his eyes were hard, as if issuing a challenge and daring Will to answer.

A wry smile curved Will’s lips. “You understand me, and yet you’re still here,” he said. _You know how I feel about killing, and yet you didn’t run away_ , he meant.

What did that say about Hannibal himself?

“I’m still here,” Hannibal agreed.

There was another silence. Again, Will was the one to break it. “An easy explanation would be that he made a mistake,” he said, about Garret Jacob Hobbs. “The guilt or the need to honor his victim became overwhelming, and he made a mistake. He seemed surprised when I told him how we found him, after all; whatever he’d done with the sparrows, he didn’t suspect he’d made the mistake he did. But why now? Why, when he was so close to achieving his goal? Was it his subconscious making him send out a last, desperate cry for help, pleading with the universe to stop him, because he knew how terrible what he was doing would be?” It sounded stupid even as he said it, and he shook his head. “No, that’s too simple. He had one goal in mind, and it was terrible even to him, but he never intended to get caught because it needed to happen. It was more important to him than anything else. Nothing before this gave us any idea of who he was, and that was no accident. His work is so detailed, so deliberate; he wouldn’t have overlooked something that would so easily lead the FBI to him, not before he’d done what he needed to do.”

There was a gnawing suspicion in the back of his mind as he spoke. He couldn’t pin it down, but it screamed danger, that he had better watch his back because there was something he was missing.

Hannibal looked amused. “You say that the sparrow is something that easily led the FBI to him, and yet, you were the only one who could figure it out. You saw the significance of the birds, which, alone among the dozens of other things he changed for that particular piece, allowed for his capture.”

Will snorted. “Well, I’m sure they would’ve figured it out eventually. It’s not like he’s the Ripper.”

“But would they have figured it out in time to catch him before he killed Abigail? Unlikely,” Hannibal said.

“Mm. Fair point,” Will mused.

There was a pause. Will thought about Garret Jacob Hobbs again, the way he had so meticulously put everything together, like a complex 3-D puzzle. Everything in his displays had its own specific place, and everything slotted together in one particular, elegant way. Everything was deliberate. The birds, too, then, must have been deliberate.

But if they were deliberate, and if Garret Jacob Hobbs never meant to be captured…

“Garret Jacob Hobbs didn’t put the birds there,” Will realized suddenly. As soon as the words left his lips, it all began to make sense; strings came together in his mind, frantically and feverishly weaving a tapestry of the events that had occurred, overwriting and rewriting the story that had been previously told. “Not the saltmarsh sparrows, anyway—those replaced the sparrows he’d already put there. I was right. He didn’t make a mistake; everything he did was perfect, and everything he did had a purpose. He needed the birds for rebirth, but he was too smart to have overlooked the fact that the saltmarsh sparrow isn’t indigenous to Minnesota, too smart to have not realized that they would have led the FBI to him, but if it weren’t for the sparrows, he wouldn’t have been caught. So if it wasn’t an accident, and if he never wanted to be caught, someone else put the birds there—someone who knew who he was.”

Will trailed off abruptly. The last piece of the tapestry had come together, and he felt a clench deep in his gut. “It was the Ripper,” he said.

Something glinted in Hannibal’s eyes.

“The Ripper put the sparrows there after Hobbs had left the scene,” Will continued. “Most likely soon after the girl’s death, so her blood was still wet; he needed to splatter the feathers with blood to make the birds seem a natural part of the canvas. The Ripper led us to the Minnesota Shrike on purpose, but disguised the trail so that we would think it was just Hobbs making a mistake. The sparrows were his signature on that kill, his mark, his claiming of it. The sparrows breed in the Chesapeake Bay.” There was that feeling again, that prickling on the back of his neck that warned him of danger.

“What if the Ripper framed him?” Hannibal asked. “Do you think there is a possibility that the Ripper is responsible for all of these murders currently attributed to the Shrike, and just framed the wrong man?”

“No.” Will’s hands tightened on the armrests; he was tense. “The Ripper wouldn’t spend all that time on one person unless that person was interesting to him. He put the birds there in that last kill, and that was all he did, and that was all he needed to do. He stepped in when it was necessary and didn’t do any more than that.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t just a bystander. It wasn’t someone wanting to do good but unsure how.”

Will scoffed. “No. Are you kidding? Those sparrows were beautiful. It was _art_ , the significance of the way they were placed and the precision with which he was able to do it. Some common bystander couldn’t achieve that—hell, the Shrike himself couldn’t even do it. And the most convincing thing of all is that the Ripper _told_ me. He literally told me directly, right after we’d spent so much time looking for the Shrike and right after we’d finally found him and then spent so much more time obsessing over his and his daughter’s fates. I said it myself, standing in front of Daniel Cates: ‘the Shrike stole the Ripper’s voice.’ The Ripper put the saltmarsh sparrows on Hobbs’s victim, and he put feathers in Cates’s lungs, too—whether they were saltmarsh sparrow feathers or shrike feathers, I don’t know, and the specificity doesn’t matter as long as the message comes through. He was telling me that we had been giving the Shrike undue credit, but I didn’t understand it until now.”

Hannibal looked thoughtful. “I see. But surely the Ripper must have felt entitled to the FBI’s attention if he claimed that the Shrike stole his voice, as you put it. Why is that? And why there, why that victim? He’d be a long way from home.”

“Because he’s following us.” Will’s knuckles were white. “The FBI, I mean. He sees what we’re doing and adjusts his actions accordingly. Leads us to Garret Jacob Hobbs because he feels like it, or because he thought Garret Jacob Hobbs was getting in the way of his spotlight—he was getting close, after all. The same care for detail, the same precision, even if he was still working to perfect it, even if he could never get quite on the Ripper’s level. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ripper just wanted Hobbs out of the way. But he did it in a way that not everyone could see what he did. And then he got angry that we didn’t get it, and killed again to make it clear, but even then, still not clear enough to everyone. I’m the only one who realized what he was saying about that girl’s murder, after all.” A flush spread to his cheeks as he spoke, and he could feel the heat on his neck. The feeling of danger was getting stronger.

“So he’s teasing,” Hannibal said. “Seeing if Jack can figure it out.”

“Oh, he knows Jack can’t figure it out alone. But he’s taken interest in someone, someone who he thinks may be his equal, someone who he elevates above his victims if only they can prove themselves worthy and prove time and again that they can truly understand him.”

“So he’s testing?”

Will’s throat was dry; he licked his lips. “More like courting, I think.”

A faint smile curved the corners of Hannibal’s mouth. “Courting who?”

Will echoed Hannibal’s smile breathlessly. “Who do you think? We all know there’s only one person who can even hope to keep up with him.”

Hannibal’s smile widened. He looked almost pleased. He leaned forward slightly in his seat; a quick, precise movement, and Will’s heart responded by pounding double-time in his chest. “And how do you feel about that?” Hannibal asked.

Will let out a dry laugh, forced himself to regain control of his voice. “You know, for a guy who’s being flirted with by a serial killer I feel pretty good, actually.”

“Flirting, you say,” Hannibal said. His gaze was fixed on Will’s face.

Will lifted his chin. “Isn’t it?”

Hannibal swallowed; Will’s eyes followed the movement of his throat, and then flickered back to meet the other man’s gaze. It was intense, almost black, and as Will watched, he thought it shifted briefly, almost imperceptibly, downwards.

Lingering on his mouth.

Will let his lips part. He was sure Hannibal could smell the adrenaline coursing through him by now, coming off him in waves, making him reek like a bitch in heat; indeed, he could catch the other man’s heightened pulse on his throat in the subtle shift of pale skin peeking out above the collar, could see the tension in Hannibal’s grip in the sudden whiteness of his knuckles.

Hannibal’s gaze returned to Will’s eyes, and Will held it. For a long moment, neither of them blinked.

“A flirtation demands a response,” Hannibal said finally. “You need to decide what yours will be.”

Will found himself back in the woods that night. He approached the clearing he had first seen the Wendigo, walking slowly and carefully; he found a sheltered spot at the edge, and then stopped, sat down on the frosty ground, waited.

It was half an hour before something stirred in the shadows. He stood, heart suddenly pounding, and a moment later the Wendigo appeared on the other side of the clearing.

It seemed obvious that the Wendigo had known he was there all along, but for a long, tense moment, neither of them moved. Will risked a glance at its left wing; it was still bent, the feathers dragging on the ground, and their tips glittered with a thin layer of frost.

The Wendigo watched him, black eyes bright and unblinking.

Finally, Will spoke. “Hello,” he said quietly. Feathers around the side of the Wendigo’s face twitched, but otherwise it was still.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Will said; his voice was quiet, but he knew the Wendigo would hear him across the clearing. Something told him it would understand him as well; there was a keen intelligence in its inky gaze, an alert curiosity in the lines of its body.

“I want to help,” Will continued, watching as the Wendigo tilted its head at his voice. It clicked from deep within its throat but didn’t move; Will nodded at its left wing. “You’re hurt,” he said. “You’re wing is broken, and you haven’t been able to fly with it like that. I want to help you.”

There was no reaction.

“I _can_ help you, I think,” Will said. “But I’ll need to take a closer look at it first.”

Still, no reaction.

Will swallowed. He made to stand, froze when the Wendigo hissed suddenly. It was a low, terrifying sound, accompanied by suddenly bared teeth, rattling feathers, narrowed eyes. It lowered its head, arched its wings, took a threatening step towards him.

“Or not,” Will said quickly, heart racing. “Whatever you want.” He sat back down cautiously; the hissing subsided, and the Wendigo returned to its place.

Right. Stay seated, then.

The Wendigo watched him suspiciously, crept a few meters to the side. Its body, though skeletal, was like that of a human, with human-like limbs, but it walked on all fours like a cat, stepping lightly and almost delicately. The feathers of its tail dragged lightly through the snow; scars in the land which inexplicably healed over just a few moments later, furrows disappearing in the creature’s wake. The movement had brought it to Will’s right and a little bit closer, and it settled down there and watched him with a keen curiosity.

Will took a deep, shuddering breath, reached behind him slowly, paused when the Wendigo hissed again.

“I’ve brought something for you,” Will said quietly. The Wendigo’s fangs glistened, but it didn’t move. He pulled the chunk of meat he’d brought out of his bag, unwrapped the plastic around it and tossed it several meters in front of him.

The Wendigo paused, quieted, tilted its head. The feathers around its head twitched and it blinked; two pale, translucent membranes slid sideways over its eyes. It looked at the meat, back at Will.

“Deer,” Will said. “Not sure if you’ll like it.”

The Wendigo emitted another series of clicks, took a hesitant step forward out of the shadows. The black skin of its forearm was almost silver in the moonlight and its feathers shone, glossy as silk.

Will nodded at the chunk of meat. “It’s fresh,” he said. “Killed it yesterday. Still bloody, since that’s what you seemed to like.”

The Wendigo tilted its head back and forth at his voice, hesitated, and took another step forward. Its glance shifted between the meat and Will, and then it started forward again. Will watched it, kept still, tried to make himself as non-threatening as possible, until the Wendigo reached the meat.

It lowered its head, eyed the meat for a few moments, and then in one quick, fluid motion, gripped it in its claws and retreated back to its end of the clearing. It crouched down, spread its wings over it, began to eat.

Something told him that was the furthest he’d get tonight.

Will let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, let the knotted muscles in his shoulders relax. He stood slowly; the Wendigo looked up at him for a moment, clicked briefly, and then returned to its meal.

Safe, then. Will turned and headed home.

He went back frequently after that. Sometimes it was seconds before it showed up in the clearing; sometimes it was almost an hour, but it always came, and it never let him touch it, but it allowed him to come closer, until he was close enough to have run his hands over its feathers or inky black skin. He didn’t know if it had a name and it had looked up at him and clicked when he’d said Wendigo, so he’d stuck with that, and it seemed to work for both of them.

He saw Hannibal too, in the next few months, for his regular appointments. Snow gave way to biting frost gave way to rain, and March brought birdsong and new shoots and does walking light-footed between the trees despite bellies heavy with the young soon to be born.

He didn’t tell Hannibal about the Wendigo.

Abigail wrote to him too, in those months of growth and beginnings and births. She told him that things were still a bit tense between her and her mother but that she knew her mother was trying. She said that she was doing better, but that she was still having trouble not thinking about the day her life had fallen apart or the day her father had been found dead, and that she knew he would tell her none of it was her fault but she couldn’t help but feel guilty anyway.

Will wrote back, as he always did. He kept the worry for her out of his words, and when the cases came up, he kept his worry for her out of them.

The next one was a woman named Eden Murphy. A Ripper case again. She was strung up in a thicket of young birch trees by a stream, so simple and elegant that she almost seemed to be a ballerina frozen in motion, poised on her toes, arms outstretched, head turned gently over her right shoulder. She was pale, so fair that her skin seemed almost translucent, red hair flowing freely in the slight breeze over closed eyes. She had been turned into a tree, branches woven around her body and arching high over her head, out from the spread of her arms, and there were dozens and dozens of blue butterflies placed over her corpse and inside, where she had been cut open to expose a missing liver.

“He’s talking to me again,” he told Jack when he was asked. “It’s the same thing I told Abigail months ago; a butterfly’s path is preordained. No matter what is done, a monarch caterpillar will become a monarch butterfly. He’s telling me that he knows what path I’ll follow.”

“And what is that path?” Jack asked.

“He wants me to join him,” Will said. There was a slight rasp in his voice. “He thinks I understand him like no one else can; that’s why he’s chosen me. He’s looking for a partner.”

“In killing?”

Will swallowed. “In life.”

“Ah,” Jack said.

They wrapped up the scene, sent the body to the morgue for an autopsy and samples to the lab for evidence that Will knew they wouldn’t find; the Ripper didn’t make mistakes, and anything they happened to find would have pointed away from him. He was killing to get Will’s attention, to _talk_ to him, but he had no intention of getting caught or of letting the FBI get close. There would be no new leads, nothing to follow. His trail was fresh, but it was already cold by the time Jack set his bloodhound loose.

Cold, except for the left wing of a blue butterfly left on Will’s table.

For a moment, Will felt like his heart had stopped. The butterflies the Ripper had used in his display were rare and specific; it was unmistakable that the wing sitting on his kitchen table had come from one of them. It was unmistakable that the Ripper had been in his house and had left the wing as a gift for him.

He did a sweep of the house. There was no evidence of a break-in, no one hiding behind the door or under the bed. Other than the wing, there was nothing there that shouldn’t have been, and nothing that should have been there that wasn’t. For all he could tell, the Ripper had let himself in, left the butterfly wing on his table, and left, locking the door behind him.

He knew he should tell Jack. This could be evidence; the team could dust the wing for prints, dust his _house_ for prints and search it for anything that he might have missed with a naked eye. They would be able to talk about what should be done next, and at the very least, recommend a better lock for him to install on his door. And yet, something held him back.

The Wendigo had been drinking from Daniel Cates’s body, after all. Something told him that the Wendigo was responsible for the man’s death, and if that was the case, the Wendigo must also be responsible for the death of Eden Murphy and bringing him the gift of the butterfly wing.

How was he supposed to explain that to Jack? How was he supposed to explain that he was getting gifts from the Ripper’s tableaus from a creature he was hallucinating?

He didn’t tell Jack.

The same thing happened with the next case three weeks later; a man named Adam Blackwood found in the middle of a river, erected to be rising from the churning waters with his arms folded over his chest like an old god laid to rest but summoned back to vengeance. The body was clothed this time, draped in black cloth like a robe, like Death himself, and his kidneys were missing. He was tangled in fishing line, the skin on his hands peeled back to expose tendon and bone from wrist down to fingertip, except for the right ring finger, where Jack pointed out that the most proximal bone was missing, replaced instead with wire.

Will swallowed hard. It was missing, of course, because the Wendigo had given it to him last night, and it was now folded in tissue paper and tucked in the corner of his desk drawer.

He hadn’t asked it where it had gotten the butterfly wing, and he didn’t ask where it had gotten the knucklebone. It seemed obvious enough—unless he looked deeper at the impossibility of a creature that wasn’t real bringing him things that very much were, at the impossibility of a nonexistent body having physical access to his house.

The Wendigo was the Ripper, but the Wendigo wasn’t real. It was a stand-in his mind had supplied for something far more dangerous, something that could do far more damage than sharp teeth and claws, and Will couldn’t see what it was.

“The Ripper kills in threes,” Jack said, as Blackwood’s body was pulled from the river. “This is the third kill.”

It wasn’t framed as a question, but there was a question there nevertheless. “He’s waiting for a response,” Will said. “He was…showing _interest_ in me with Cates. With Murphy, he seemed to be reinforcing it, telling me that I’ll have changed into what he wants me to by fall. Here, he’s trying to get me to respond to him.”

“Something which would take considerable thought,” Jack said. “Acceptance would undoubtedly be dangerous, rejection—or even perceived indifference—potentially even more so. Something tells me the Chesapeake Ripper isn’t the type to just accept when things don’t go the way he wants.” He paused, and when he spoke again, he sounded troubled. “But _why_? Why you, other than the fact that you’ve pretty much made my success rate skyrocket? He’s not just doing this to toy with the FBI; he’s interested in you specifically, and you alone. But why court you as a potential life partner—just because you understand him?”

A wry smile twisted Will’s mouth; Hannibal’s words echoed in the back of his mind. “Isn’t that we all crave the most?” he asked. “To understand and to be understood?”

Jack looked at him for a long moment. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, I suppose so.”

Will could almost see Hannibal’s smile, the slight curve of his lips, the crow’s feet that formed at the corners of his eyes. He blinked, and Hannibal’s lips parted, and then Will was staring at his own face on Hannibal’s body, and there was blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

EARLY APRIL

His hallucinations and nightmares were getting worse. He mentioned it to Hannibal in therapy, told him that he kept dreaming of Abigail getting hurt, that he kept dreaming of _himself_ hurting her, with his fingers closing around her throat or a knife slipping between her ribs or her body falling limp to the ground, ridden with bullet holes, and his voice shook and his hands trembled when he told Hannibal that he wanted Abigail to be safe but he liked it when he was hurting her.

Hannibal grounded him. His voice was a lifeline, and when his voice wasn’t enough and Will couldn’t pull himself back into the present he used his hands instead, the calloused warmth closing around his wrists enough to remind him that he here, with Hannibal, instead of out in the middle of the stream killing the girl he’d begun to think of as his daughter.

Usually this happened in Hannibal’s office. Today, however, they were in Hannibal’s house, seated across from each other in the man’s living room turned into a makeshift therapy room. Hannibal had called earlier that day, saying he’d had an emergency meeting with a client and asking Will if he would be willing to move his appointment later and to Hannibal’s house following dinner that he would cook for them—this time, a lean, light cut of meat baked in clay. Will had agreed; he hadn’t had any other plans for the rest of the evening, and there had been a lull in cases, leaving the Ripper the only thing they had to worry about.

“There’s a part of me that…that still wants her dead,” Will whispered about Abigail, as they sat across from each other in Hannibal’s living room after dinner. “I care for her; I feel responsible for her in a way I’ve never felt responsible for anyone else. Parental, almost. But I think of her and I know it’s been months but I still can’t help but also think of her father and how he’s a part of her, and I can’t help but think about how I want everything about Garret Jacob Hobbs to be destroyed.” He swallowed, stared hard at the left front leg of Hannibal’s chair. “I feel like he’s still in my head, affecting my thoughts, my very _being_ , even though he’s been dead for months.”

“Will,” Hannibal said, waiting until Will looked up at him before continuing, voice soft but firm. “You are not the Minnesota Shrike. You did not kill Abigail Hobbs. You are your own man, and you have your own path. Just because you understand the killers you catch does not mean you are destined to follow them.”

“I worry about her,” Will mumbled. “I know afterwards that what I saw was a dream, but I keep thinking that something is going to happen to her, and I don’t know what I’d do if it did. Well—I’d kill the guy responsible, probably,” he said with a forced laugh. “Which would make me a murderer, which would mean that Jack would have to find someone else to be his bloodhound.” He paused. “He’d hate me for that more than for the actual act of killing someone, I’d bet.”

Hannibal was silent for a few moments. For a moment, the Wendigo’s black, black eyes stared out at him from Hannibal’s skull, and then Hannibal blinked, and the hallucination vanished. “Perhaps it would be a good idea to tell him,” he said, seemingly unaware to what Will had just seen.

“What—about my nightmares?”

“Yes. I worry that the stress Jack is putting you under is wearing you down; your profession experiences more than its fair share of trauma.”

Will clenched his jaw. “Do you think that’s what it is? Trauma?”

“I think Garret Jacob Hobbs has left a deep and lasting impression on you which is manifesting in these nightmares, and your progress in healing is being hindered by the work he has you doing with the Ripper. Jack might see you as his bloodhound, but he also sees you as porcelain. He knows your mind is fragile. He knows that your empathy might make you more susceptible to manipulation.”

“So you think he’ll believe that I’m being manipulated by a dead man?” Will asked wryly.

“Not by a dead man,” Hannibal said. “But the live one you’re still trying to catch.”

Will swallowed. He didn’t have an answer to that.

“You cannot deny the Ripper is trying to manipulate you,” Hannibal said quietly when Will didn’t speak. “Courtship always involves some level of manipulation, some attempt to convince the other party that they are worthy of reciprocation. The Ripper has already convinced you that he is superior to the Shrike; he has also convinced you that there is some beauty to his displays, as gruesome as their creation must have been.”

“I’m not sure it’s that he’s convinced me, or if he’s just unearthed something that’s always been there,” Will murmured. He paused. “I don’t know which one is worse.”

“Some would say that makes you insane,” Hannibal said.

“Implying that you don’t,” Will said.

“I don’t,” Hannibal agreed. He tilted his head, looked at Will. “But you don’t seem convinced.”

“There’s…there’s something else,” Will said hesitantly. He glanced up at Hannibal; the man’s face was expressionless. “It came up around the same time as Cates.”

“I take it you mean this is something you haven’t mentioned before,” Hannibal said.

“Yes.” Will swallowed.

Hannibal uncrossed his legs, crossed them again the other way. He waited.

Will shivered lightly. “It’s not just dreams. I’ve been having…I’ve been _seeing_ things,” he said. “One thing, specifically. A recurring hallucination, if you will. But it seems so real.”

“And you know it’s not?”

Will scoffed. “It can’t be. It doesn’t exist.”

Hannibal inclined his chin slightly, accepting Will’s judgment. “What is it that you see?”

Will swallowed again, looked away. Danger prickled at the back of his neck. “It’s a…I don’t know, really. I’ve been calling it Wendigo. The name just sort of came to me. It looks a bit like a human, but emaciated and all black.” He huffed a laugh. “That might be why I called it Wendigo, honestly. And it’s not a natural black—not for skin, anyway. It’s like ink. The blue-black of raven feathers. And it’s got two antlers and a pair of wings, like a…like an eagle. No—narrower, more like an osprey.”

“Are its wings black as well?”

“No.” Will shook his head. “Well, yes mostly, but they’re still somehow surprisingly colorful. White and reddish-brown on the undersides of the primaries, black barring. White wing linings. The rest of the wings are almost completely black, but the edges of the feathers are a kind of reddish gold. The black is almost iridescent. It has a hawk’s tail, too. And when I look at its face, I can only see its eyes, also all black. No nose, no visible mouth unless it opens it, and then it’s got fangs, a tongue…” He broke off, shaking his head again. “It shouldn’t be alive. But I see it. I saw it drinking blood from Daniel Cates’s body two days after the FBI took away his remains. I saw it after that too, whenever I walk into the woods near my house; I’ve seen it a few times since. It’s been…bringing me things.”

“What kind of things?”

Will hesitated, felt his hands tighten into fists. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, took a shuddering breath. “It’s brought me things from the Ripper kills,” he said quietly.

Hannibal was silent. Will glanced up at him, and his expression was unreadable.

“I know what this sounds like. But I didn’t kill them,” Will whispered, because he was suddenly afraid that Hannibal suspected him, suddenly afraid that he’d gone too far and Hannibal’s undeniable interest and care would give way to suspicion and rejection—an irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless.

“I _know_ I didn’t kill them,” Will continued. “I know I’m not the Ripper. But I don’t…I don’t understand why I have these things from the victims. From the _displays_.” He shivered, noted the tension that had crept through his body. No, he had no memory of killing, other than what he’d imagined the Ripper doing. And he was confident that what he’d thought of was really that—just his imagination, and nothing more. Not true memory.

But the Wendigo couldn’t be real. There was no way it actually existed. And yet this piece of his imagination was what had brought him the butterfly and the knucklebones, this piece of his imagination was what he _knew_ had killed Daniel Cates and Eden Murphy and Adam Blackwood.

He had gotten impossible mementos of things only he and the Ripper knew about from a creature that didn’t exist.

“Do you feel comfortable showing me these…gifts?” Hannibal asked finally.

“No.” The answer was immediate. It felt utterly and completely wrong to even think of showing anyone else what the Wendigo had brought him, as if it would be revealing an intimate and private part of himself that no one else should ever see, not even Hannibal, who already understood him so thoroughly.

“And you’re sure that these gifts are real?” Hannibal’s voice was gentle.

Will’s breath caught in his throat. Ah, so was what Hannibal had been getting at; trying to see for himself what Will had claimed, to reassure Will that he’d just been hallucinating when Will went back to collect the gifts only to discover that they’d vanished.

“They’re real,” Will said quietly. He knew they were. They were the reason Blackwood’s display hadn’t been a surprise to him.

Hannibal was silent for another moment. When he spoke again, he was clinical; detached. “Do you think your encephalitis is coming back?”

Will started. “Um.” He blinked, frowned. “I…I don’t think so. Honestly, I didn’t even think about that. I’ve been taking my medication, and I haven’t had seizures lately.”

“Headaches? Memory loss?”

“No more than usual,” Will mumbled.

“Mm. That is indeed strange, though symptoms of illness don’t always come altogether, and they don’t always come as predicted. You could be experiencing intense hallucinations or loss of time without many of the other symptoms co-occurring. That would be rare but not unheard of.”

Will squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “It can’t be real,” he said, about the Wendigo. “It’s not possible. But it’s there, and I know it’s the killer, and only I can see it.” A feeling of ice settled in his gut; he looked up almost pleadingly at Hannibal. “Am I going mad, Hannibal? Is that what this is?”

“Madness isn’t a medical term,” Hannibal said. “If you’re asking if the confusion of your thought process is caused by something other than physical illness, then yes, that’s possible.”

Insanity. Or psychopathy. Or multiple personalities. Or something infinitely more complex that he didn’t understand; the human psyche was rarely easily explained, after all. People followed patterns; they didn’t follow maps.

“I didn’t kill them,” Will said again, and his voice shook ever so slightly. “I’m not the Ripper.”

“I believe you,” Hannibal said.

Will swallowed, glanced at him. “I don’t want to keep the gifts,” he whispered. “It’s wrong. I shouldn’t want—I shouldn’t keep them. Out of respect to the victims. But I don’t…I don’t even remember how they got there, if the Wendigo put them there or if I brought them back…I don’t even really remember the first time seeing them. I kept telling myself that it was after I saw the murders and knew what had happened, but I feel like that’s wrong. I feel like I’m hiding it from myself, denying myself the truth, but I know what the truth is anyway.”

“And the truth is?”

Will shuddered; it took him several attempts to speak. “The truth is that I think I had them from the beginning. From before anyone saw the displays.”

“So you think this means you should have known about the murders before the FBI was even notified,” Hannibal said.

“Yes.” Dread was creeping through his veins, burning away at his blood, chewing at his flesh until he could feel physical pain. “I think that the Wendigo is the Chesapeake Ripper, and the Ripper is doing these things to impress me. The first kill was because he was interested, the next were him taking it a step further.”

“Courting, you said last time,” Hannibal murmured. He paused. “You also expressed little worry at the thought.”

Will laughed; an ugly sound. “Oh, I’m not worried specifically about the fact that he’s interested in me. I’m thinking more about what he’s going to do about it. ‘A flirtation demands a response.’ You were right, Hannibal; he already tried to get a response from me with Adam Blackwood, but I haven’t given him one. He’s going to get impatient, and I’m not the one he’s going to take it out on, because there’s nothing he’s done which could incite a response from me. That’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it? Especially for someone who works at the FBI? He could go on killing and killing and killing and I wouldn’t be bothered to be anything more than interested, because there’s nothing he could do to entice me, except—” He broke off abruptly.

Except Abigail.

The Ripper could go after Abigail.

_There’s nothing he could do to entice me, except go after Abigail._

“This is wrong,” Will blurted out, and his voice broke. “This is wrong, Hannibal, _I’m_ wrong, there’s something wrong with me—”

“You’ve been put under immense stress,” Hannibal said quietly, and the firm calmness of his voice cut through Will’s thoughts. “Jack has pushed you too far.”

“No,” Will said immediately. “No, Jack _needs_ me to work, we all know he wouldn’t get anywhere without me. I need to be able to handle this. The Ripper demands a response, and I won’t give one, because there’s no response that would be acceptable. I reject him, he retaliates. He’s not one to let go calmly; there would be consequences. But if I accept him, if I acquiesce, I become him.” He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, God, I become him, I become the Ripper—”

“You will not become the Ripper,” Hannibal said, and Will latched onto his voice desperately to pull him out of the thoughts that were burning his mind, boiling his brain. “Understanding is not the same as becoming.”

“But I _would_ ,” Will insisted. His heart was beginning to race; his palms were slick with sweat. “I understand him so well that if I submitted to him, I would become him. We’d be one and the same.” He shook his head again. “I can’t give him a response. I can’t. I don’t know what to do.” He looked up at Hannibal, desperate, pleading. “I need you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal’s breath hitched in his throat.

“I’m scared,” Will said, and his voice shook.

“Sometimes it is helpful if you know what you would say if given the opportunity, even if you resolve never to say it out loud,” Hannibal said, and his voice had the practiced calm of someone who has dealt with such panic before but Will could hear the urgency laced in the back of his throat, the understanding that Will was losing control. “It may give you a better sense of control in a situation. Going through that thought process is something we can work on, if you are interested.”

Will flinched, hunched over. “I don’t know,” he whispered, and he was shaking now, and he couldn’t stop it. “I don’t know what I want. I just know that this can’t go on. This is all my fault, he keeps killing because I haven’t caught him or responded to him. He keeps killing because of me. All of the people who he’s killed are dead because of me, and he _knows_ me, Hannibal, he knows I worry about Abigail, what if he goes after her? What if he goes after her and hurts her and—”

“Will,” Hannibal said. He was in front of Will now, kneeling on the ground, taking Will’s hands in his. “Will, you need to relax.”

“I can’t,” Will spat out. He was still shaking, and his head hurt, and his temples were starting to pound, and he couldn’t think about anything other than—

“Will,” Hannibal said again, quietly but firmly. “You’re alright. Abigail is being looked after. Just focus on the present, focus on your breathing.”

Hannibal’s voice faded out after that.

Will squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, squeezed his eyes shut again, opened them again.

“Will?”

Will started, and then his vision focused on Hannibal kneeling in front of him.

“What…what happened?” Will asked. His voice sounded hoarse, even to himself.

“You had a mild seizure,” Hannibal said. “Do you remember anything?”

“I…” Will trailed off, blinked hard, shook his head. He forced himself to remember, to speak; it took several tries for his voice to come out. “I remember thinking about Abigail. Being scared for her. Thinking that everything…that it’s all my fault.” He swallowed. “That’s the last thing I know: thinking that it’s all because of me.”

Hannibal’s voice was gentle as ever, his presence constant like the ocean. Will held onto it, forced his mind to latch on and stay in the present. “Does it upset you to think that way?” Hannibal asked.

Will tensed. _Yes_ , he almost said, because it seemed like the right thing to say, because what kind of person would he be to say that no, it actually felt somehow, sickeningly _right_ , for people to be dead because of him, that he was _flattered_ to have someone create such beautiful, thoughtful things as what the Ripper had created for him? What kind of person would he be to acknowledge that he couldn’t respond to the Ripper’s courtship because he _wanted_ to acquiesce, and the fear he felt wasn’t because of what the Ripper would do in retaliation, but because of how okay with it he was?

But Hannibal knew that already, didn’t he? _You know, for a guy who’s being flirted with by a serial killer I feel pretty good, actually._

“No,” he said quietly.

In front of him, Hannibal’s face remained impassive.

“Does it…am I sick, Hannibal? For feeling like this?” His voice came out in barely more than a whisper and he felt himself tense, afraid of what he would hear in response.

“Your feelings are what they are,” Hannibal said. “You cannot control how you feel; nor would I advise you to do so even if you were capable. You can only control how you act based on your emotions.”

 _And how would you advise me act?_ Will wanted to ask, but he didn’t. It seemed safer for both of them if he avoided that question. How would Hannibal answer? _Could_ Hannibal answer, in a way that was both ethical and helpful? Will doubted there was a protocol on what to say if a patient said they were flattered by sculptures made out of freshly-killed human bodies dedicated to them.

His grip tightened. He _liked_ it.

Could the Wendigo sense that, too? He remembered the items it had brought him, each reminiscent of some part of the Ripper’s sculptures, each of them _fresh_ , like it had been taken directly from the newly erected displays—or, perhaps, even before the sculptures had been created. The butterflies, the knucklebone; both things that appeared on the sculpture. Both things that the Ripper had put into the art he had dedicated to him.

The Wendigo was in his mind now. He could see it slinking through the shadows of his thoughts, peering in on them, picking its way through them. Its feathers rustled; eyes flashed. Will thought he could see blood on those feathers, blood dripping from where its mouth should be.

It seemed to be calling him. _Come_ , it was saying, in the way it watched him. _Come with me, and I’ll show you what I have done for you._

Sparrows. Flying, screeching, wings beating in his face, blinding him with piercing beaks

_Come, I’ll show you the beauty I have created._

Butterflies, the shimmering blue of them visible even through the blood pouring out of his ruined eyes, the sound of their flight deafening.

_Come, I’ll show you who I have killed…_

Abigail.

_No!_

Will cried out, reached for the gun at his hip and pointed it at the Wendigo, pulled the trigger and watched blood explode from the bullet’s impact, watched feathers quiver and a gaping mouth open from where before there had been none to let out a harsh, piercing scream—

He gasped, and he was back in Hannibal Lecter’s office.

“Will?”

He jerked in his seat at the sound of Hannibal’s voice; the man was still in front of him. Gradually, he became aware of Hannibal’s hands on his, thumbs rubbing soothing circles in his palms.

It took him several tries to speak. “What are you doing?” Will asked hoarsely.

“Grounding you,” Hannibal said. “Your hands were shaking. I daresay it worked.”

Will looked at his hands, forced his eyes to focus. Indeed, they were still now, limp in Hannibal’s grip. He swallowed, nodded.

“Would you like me to continue?” Hannibal asked.

Will swallowed again. “Yeah,” he rasped.

There was a small smile on Hannibal’s face. His hands were warm, Will thought distantly, eyes unfocused as he stared unseeingly down at their hands entwined together. He felt Hannibal’s grip tighten around his wrists, felt the rough catch of Hannibal’s palms as he moved up to Will’s forearms. Fingers pressed into his muscles, finding knots and rubbing them away; callouses caught on the fabric of Will’s shirt.

“Guess this answers the question of if my encephalitis is coming back,” Will mumbled.

Hannibal made an amused noise. “Yes, I think it would be fair to say that. Provided, of course, that there’s no other problem.”

“Is that possible? I don’t know, a–a tumor, or something? Something that the brain scan didn’t catch last time, or something that’s developed since then?” He swallowed. “Or did you mean something psychological? Something that’s just…just fundamentally wrong with me?”

Hannibal paused, and when he spoke his voice was gentle. “It could be either,” he said quietly. “Something physical or something mental—but differences are differences, neither inherently good nor bad. It all depends on perspective.”

His hands shifted to Will’s upper arms now, and he moved in slightly closer. He was still kneeling in front of Will with his chest brushing Will’s knees, but Will’s legs had edged apart to make room for him.

Distantly, Will wondered when that had happened, and if he minded.

“You’re tense,” Hannibal murmured, as he moved up along Will’s biceps to his shoulders.

“I know,” Will said. His eyes drifted shut, and he heard what sounded almost like an amused laugh from Hannibal.

“Always this tense, or just in these episodes?” Hannibal asked.

Will didn’t answer; they both knew what it would have been anyway.

“Technically our session is over,” Hannibal said, murmuring a soft apology as Will winced from the pressure of his fingers on tight muscle. “If you usually remain so emotionally charged this long after a session, I can recommend some relaxation techniques. We can work through them together, if you like.”

“This long—shit, what time is it?”

“Almost eleven. We ran over by twelve minutes, and you’ve been sitting in silence like this for thirty-seven minutes after that. You exhibited signs of dissociation; do you remember anything?”

“No,” Will said blankly, bluntly.

“Ah.” Hannibal paused; Will felt the other man’s gaze on him. “How are you feeling now?”

“Tense,” Will said.

“Touché,” Hannibal said with a smile, and continued.

Will took a shuddering breath. “I keep…I keep worrying about Abigail. Almost obsessively. I know that much.”

“I know,” Hannibal said.

Will glanced at him; the man’s face was impassive. “I keep imagining her hurt, or dead. Just another one of the Ripper’s kills, but he wouldn’t be killing to impress me, he would be killing because she was in the way.”

“Is she?”

“Yes.” Will swallowed, closed his eyes briefly, leaned into Hannibal’s touch to ground himself.

“The Ripper is trying to court you, but you are already engaged with responsibility to another. It may not be romantic engagement, but it nevertheless renders his attempts fruitless.”

“Yes.” Will hesitated. “I feel…like a father to her. I know it doesn’t make sense. But I feel responsible for the fact that she’s lost her father, and I feel like I owe it to her to be there for her. I didn’t want her to leave even though we all knew it was best for her. And while she’s away from me, while the Ripper is still interested, she’s in danger, and I can’t…I can’t not think about her. I can’t not worry.”

“Mm.” Hannibal pushed at a knot in Will’s shoulder. “Sounds paternal indeed.”

Will huffed a laugh. “Or maybe I’m deluding myself. Maybe I think that my influence will be enough to prevent her from becoming her father. And maybe if I can prevent her from becoming her father, it’ll be enough to prove to myself that the Ripper can’t change me.”

Hannibal’s gaze flickered up to Will’s face; sharp and piercing. “You see hope for yourself in her. You cherish that hope, and you worry that the Ripper will take that away from you.”

“Oh, you make me sound so terrible, Hannibal,” Will said with a wry smile. “Don’t you think I could cherish her because I care about _her_ , not just because of what she can give me?”

Hannibal echoed Will’s smile. “There’s no shame in seeing hope in a child. Nor is there shame in being afraid that the child will be taken from you.”

Will’s jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t be wrong, though,” he said quietly. “If you thought badly of me.”

Hannibal was silent, and Will spoke again. “I want her to be good. I don’t want her to be a butterfly; I want her to be _different_ from her father, and part of me knows that it’s not just for her own good, it’s also to show me that _I_ can be different, that my path isn’t already set for me. But I want…” He trailed off, shivered, took a shaky breath before continuing. “I’m afraid of seeing her become her father. I’m afraid of that possibility. So I want to take the part of her that can become her father and kill it. I want it to be extinguished. And it isn’t fair to her, to want to kill those parts of her just because I’m afraid of the parts of myself I see in them.”

“Will,” Hannibal murmured, and his hand slipped from Will’s shoulder to his neck, up to his jaw to cup his cheek. There was a tenderness in his touch that hadn’t been there before, a kind of aching that radiated out from his fingertips to grasp at Will’s soul.

Will leaned into his hand, closed his eyes. “Isn’t there something about you having to break confidentiality if a client expresses the intent to kill someone?” he asked quietly.

“Should I take this as an expression of intent?” Hannibal asked.

Will opened his eyes. Hannibal’s hand was still cupping his jaw, his thumb stroking his cheek ever so slightly. The other man’s gaze was fixed on him, bright and piercing; curious. Not worried.

Will’s breath caught in his throat.

“Will?” Hannibal prodded.

“No,” Will said.

Hannibal’s touch slipped back to his shoulder. “I didn’t think so.”

“It would take more than fear of myself to get me to kill someone. A greater cause. General safety, perhaps. Or the safety specifically of someone I care about, given I apparently don’t care enough about general safety to respond to the Ripper when he kills other people,” Will mumbled. He glanced at Hannibal, huffed a laugh at the cocked eyebrow he saw. “But I’ll be sure to let you know before that happens so you can call Jack to arrest me.”

“Mm. Please do.”

There were a few moments of silence. Will thought about Abigail’s last letter to him, thought about how she’d said that she was afraid. He thought about how she would be the only thing the Ripper could go after to get a response from him and what that said about him. He thought about the panic he’d felt at the possibility of the Ripper hurting her, the fact that he had been so afraid of himself before the seizure and that now all he felt was quiet acceptance.

He wondered how far it could go; acceptance of acceptance of acceptance. So much tolerance of evil instead of the fear he should feel for it. He wondered, given that he knew he would only be enticed to respond to the Ripper if he went after Abigail, if Abigail was the only person in the world he cared about.

No. There was Alana, surely? And Beverly, and a grudging respect for Jack. ( _But respect isn’t care_.)

And then there was Hannibal.

Will swallowed. He cared about Hannibal, too.

“What’s on your mind?” Hannibal murmured.

“What makes you think there’s something on my mind?” Will retorted, but there was no heat in his words. Hannibal’s touch had lulled him into quiet, and he found himself surprisingly okay with that.

“You’re more expressive than you give yourself credit for,” Hannibal said quietly, and Will could hear the amusement in his voice. “I like to think I understand you well enough to read those expressions.”

“Mm.” Will paused, decided not to argue with him and rather to accept his words as true. “I was thinking about what happened before…before the seizure.”

Hannibal tilted his head. “You remember?”

“Not anything new, no. But I…afterwards, I know I saw the Wendigo,” Will said, and Hannibal’s hands faltered for just a moment. “I saw it, in my mind. After the seizure, I mean. It was…it was calling me. Trying to show me something.” He stopped, swallowed. Dimly, he was aware that it was probably rude to keep Hannibal this long, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “It was all in my head,” he continued. “I don’t know…I don’t remember anything that happened here in that time. In reality, I mean. I wasn’t aware of any of that.” A faint shiver ran through his body. “I feel like I’m losing control.”

“Loss of memory and consciousness can cause that feeling,” Hannibal said. His hands were still on Will’s shoulders, warm and firm and squeezing, constant again, and Will felt himself relaxing again, letting his eyes drift shut and the tension seep from his body.

“I understand that it can be disorienting,” Hannibal continued, “but there are ways to cope. Coping, in addition to the relaxation techniques I mentioned earlier, are both things we can explore more in future sessions, if that is something that interests you.” Hannibal paused, and then spoke again, quietly. “It’s late, and you’re unwell. If you don’t want to return home, you may stay here tonight.”

Will hummed, smiled faintly. “I’ll admit, the offer is tempting.” Getting back home at this hour with his mind in its current state wasn’t an appealing idea; nor was leaving the relaxing touch of Hannibal’s hands.

“There is a guest room upstairs,” Hannibal said, as he pressed his thumbs into the front of Will’s shoulders, just under the flare of his collarbones. “It would be no trouble to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Will opened his eyes. Hannibal was closer than he’d expected; his breath escaped him in a soft huff, and his answer stuck in his throat.

“I’ll take you up on it, then,” he said finally, when he could speak again.

Hannibal’s face softened. His fingers skimmed Will’s jaw, slipped back to probe the tension in his neck. Will felt himself tilting his chin involuntarily, exposing more of his throat to Hannibal’s touch, and swallowed when he saw the other man’s pupils dilate ever so slightly.

“But for now,” Will began, and his voice rasped; he swallowed and tried again. “For now, I think I’d like to just sit here for a while like this. Your hands are…calming.”

“I’m glad,” Hannibal murmured. He was still holding Will’s gaze.

“I’m curious. Is this all part of the relaxation techniques you said you’d show me?” Will asked.

Hannibal chuckled. “This specifically was not what I had in mind,” he said, his fingers working their way down Will’s shoulders. “I initially intended only to ground you through touch. But I’d agree that quite literally massaging the tension out of the muscles is something else that would work, provided you could let down your guard enough to the person providing the service to you.”

“Like I’m doing with you now, you mean,” Will said, and it wasn’t a question.

He could hear Hannibal’s smile in his voice as well as he could see it. “Yes. I think that it would be difficult to relax in the presence of someone you didn’t trust, would it not?”

“Are you saying I trust you?”

“To an extent, at least. Am I wrong?”

“…No.” Will paused. He smiled faintly. “Would you say massages are something you would recommend I do on a regular basis for relaxation?”

“I’m pointing it out as an option.”

“But you know I’m not quick to trust.”

“Yes, I do know that.” Hannibal sounded amused.

“So are you offering to do this for me after every rough session?”

Hannibal hummed. “If you would like me to.” He paused. “If you’re unsure at the present moment, I’ll keep the offer open, and you may ask whenever you like.”

Will’s mouth was dry; he swallowed. “I…I’d like that.”

Hannibal’s smile widened. “Move forward, please,” he said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper.

Will swallowed again and obeyed. His heart jumped in his chest as Hannibal stood and walked around so he was behind the chair, and he drew a sharp breath as he felt Hannibal’s hands again; Hannibal squeezed the back of his neck and ran a firm touch out to the outer curves of his shoulders, pushing away tension. Fingers pressed into his shoulder blades, delineated his spine, felt the curve of each rib. Will leaned into his touch, let a sigh escape his lips.

It felt good. It felt _intimate_ , in the way Hannibal’s fingers mapped the contours of his body, slipping over muscle and bone, determining strength and weakness and curve and edge. It felt like Hannibal was examining and dissecting his body in the same way the Ripper took his victims apart and understood them.

The thought made his mouth dry, made heat flush in his belly. Yes, he cared about Hannibal. And he knew, just as surely as he’d known the Wendigo had killed for the gifts it had brought him, that if he looked, there would be something else there under the intimacy, something that he was nevertheless still afraid to name for fear that it would be something impossible, something that pulled at the danger at the back of his neck, something that relied on trust and vulnerability and was stronger and more violent than the care it was built on.

Hannibal, and Hannibal alone, had gotten trust from him. There was no denying that Will trusted Hannibal more than he trusted anyone else, including himself at times. There was no denying that Hannibal had seen him at his most vulnerable. Hannibal knew things about him that no one else knew and accepted him for it—no, was _drawn_ to him for it.

_I find you very interesting, Will Graham._

Will remembered flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, pounding heartbeat. He remembered the slight but sudden movement of Hannibal towards him when he told him about the Ripper’s courtship, the undeniable interest the other man was expressing towards him, all while understanding what Will was struggling to rationalize in his mind—and perhaps having a better idea of what Will wanted than he himself did.

Yes—that was it. Hannibal understood him, just as he understood the Ripper, even if he was just waiting for Will to understand himself. And wasn’t that just what they all wanted? Understanding, companionship, acceptance.

And Will found Hannibal Lecter interesting, too; he’d known that for a while now, when he’d kept coming back to the man to whom he’d told he was excited by the thought of killing and whose eyes had flashed and lips had parted in response. And he was starting to think that this interest was dangerous, that there was something there that excited him but that he was still too afraid to see. He was starting to think that this mutual interest was drawing them closer and closer together and that if it kept going, soon they would be entangled in a way that could never be pulled apart. They would understand, they would accept, they would become.

Perhaps he was getting closer than was good for either of them.

But for now, he told himself it was just Hannibal’s hands on his body, just the heat of Hannibal’s palms scorching his skin through his clothes and pooling to want between his legs. It was just the feeling of Hannibal carving his flesh from his bones with the same delicacy and precision of the Ripper pulling Cates’s body apart, but with Hannibal’s warmth, with Hannibal’s care, with Hannibal’s love.

“This probably goes a bit beyond patient-therapist boundaries, doesn’t it?” Will mumbled, as Hannibal’s fingers tucked around his ribs, skimmed down his sides. His touch was at once soothing and electric even through Will’s shirt, and he wondered what it would feel like if that thin barrier of cloth between their skin wasn’t there, and then he wanted desperately to know.

“We were never officially patient and therapist,” Hannibal said, rather matter-of-factly. “You know this. We were just having conversations.” His hands stilled. “I can stop, if that’s what you want.”

“No,” Will said, too quickly.

Hannibal let out a soft laugh, but his hands started moving again. “You’re tensing up again,” he said. “Try to relax more.”

“Suppose there’s not much point in you loosening me up if I’m just gonna tighten up right after, is there?” Will mumbled.

“No, I don’t think so,” Hannibal agreed. “Not here, at least.”

Will made a noncommittal noise and an effort to relax and tried not think about the implications of what Hannibal had just said. Hannibal’s hands spread out from either side of his spine, reaching around his sides, fingertips brushing against his belly, and Will drew a shaky breath. He wondered, if he didn’t ask, if Hannibal would ever stop. He wondered if he would ever want Hannibal to.

He glanced at the clock. It hung just within sight without him having to turn his head, and Hannibal’s hands pressed into him, and the hands kept ticking time away. Hannibal was as steady as the seconds that slipped past, his touch unrelenting, ceaseless, unyielding. It told Will to loosen his muscles, to close his eyes, to let his consciousness slip away and fade into darkness. He teased that line of consciousness, letting his eyes drift and his thoughts wander, and distantly he wondered why he thought of the Wendigo and what it would be like if it were asleep. Would it curl up like wild dogs do as they retreated from the heat and light of day? Would it cover its masked face with its feathers like falcons that tucked their heads under their wings? Would it wake easily, or would it be so easy to kill, so easy to walk up to it and stick a knife between its ribs?

And what about Hannibal?

“I daresay you would be more comfortable on a bed,” Hannibal said, pulling Will from his thoughts. “I can show you the room now, if you like.”

“Is this part of your suggested relaxation techniques, too?” Will asked.

Hannibal sounded amused when he answered. “There’s nothing quite like a quality mattress aligning your neck and spine in a neutral position over the course of a full natural sleep cycle to leave you feeling relaxed in the morning. Provided, of course, that your mental state is similarly calm enough to not disturb your sleep, but physicality and mentality feed back into each other, and calm in one may lead to calm in the other.” He paused. “What I mean to say is that the room is comfortable. I assure you it will provide the foundation for physical relaxation, and I hope I have provided the foundation for mental relaxation as well.”

A dry smile worked its way across Will’s face. “You make me feel like I’m at a high-class hotel. Or a spa.”

“I always strive to make my guests feel welcome. And you aren’t just any guest, Will.”

Will’s heart stuttered a bit. “Oh?”

“It would have been a severe oversight on my part if you didn’t know that already,” Hannibal said, and he had the gall to sound mildly appalled at the prospect. “My house is always open to friends and family.”

“Friends and family,” Will repeated. The words sounded strange in his mouth.

“Yes,” Hannibal said.

Will turned his head slightly; he could see Hannibal out of the corner of his eye. “So am I friends or family?”

Hannibal sounded amused. “Both,” he said.

A wry smile turned the corners of Will’s mouth. “Is that the truth? Is it really that I’m both friend and family that you asked me to come here tonight instead, or did you hope for more? Did you know that I would end up staying late and give you a perfectly reasonable excuse to ask me to stay over too?”

“I think, for a profiler of your skill, that my intentions should have been perfectly clear from the beginning,” Hannibal said. “I think whatever you believe is likely to be quite accurate.”

Will didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know quite what to believe anymore. He couldn’t even quite believe that he’d said what he just said.

_Did you hope for more?_

It was brazen, it was rude, it was direct, even for him. But Hannibal hadn’t seemed to mind, and Will’s heart beat a little faster at the thought.

There was a pause in conversation, though Hannibal’s hands continued their way across Will’s back. When Will glanced at the clock again, it read twenty-four minutes past eleven.

“Upstairs?” Hannibal suggested again quietly, when Will didn’t speak for several minutes.

“Yeah,” Will said. He started a bit when Hannibal’s touch vanished from his shoulders and turned around to see the other man’s hand outstretched towards him. He hesitated, and then reached out, letting his hand slip into Hannibal’s and letting Hannibal pull him gently to his feet.

Will had been to Hannibal’s house several times before, but never to the second floor. An elegant carpet draped over the center of the staircase, its soft, faded green complimenting the rich dark wood beneath it better than Will would have expected. The entire second floor was rather dark, albeit elegant, and echoed the minimalist décor of the first floor.

Hannibal led him to the guest room and opened the door before stepping aside and letting him enter. Will saw a large bed resting on the left side of the room; a small nightstand stood on the near side of the bed, and to the far side of it was several feet of open floor space topped with a thick rug. A simple mahogany desk stood against the right wall, and the far wall of the room was dominated by a single large window framed with delicate, translucent white curtains. A small chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling; Hannibal didn’t bother to turn it on.

“I hope it’s to your liking,” Hannibal said, as Will walked cautiously over to the bed and sat down. It sank slightly under his weight and then stopped; clearly, Hannibal was true to his word; he was more than a little concerned with providing proper spinal support for his overnight guests.

“It’ll do,” Will said. It was an understatement.

Hannibal chuckled. He walked forward to stand in front of Will, touched his cheek gently. “I’ll make breakfast in the morning. Feel free to come down whenever you like, but it will be freshly prepared by eight.”

“So early?” Will murmured.

“That’s late for me, Will,” Hannibal said with a smile. “I have an appointment at nine that I will need to leave for.”

“Hm. Fine.”

There was a silence. Hannibal’s hand was still cupping Will’s jaw, thumb gently stroking his cheek.

_I think whatever you believe is likely to be quite accurate._

Will shivered.

“Would you like to lie down?” Hannibal asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” Will mumbled. “Yeah, sounds nice.” He leaned into Hannibal’s touch, let Hannibal guide him so he was lying on his back.

“Will you be alright?”

“What, after that fuckfest of a therapy session?” Will asked, with a mostly-unsuccessful attempt at a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Good.” Hannibal’s touch was tender; there almost seemed to be care in his expression and his fingers lingered a little too long on Will’s cheek to be strictly professional. (Then again, massages and overnight stays with your psychiatrist were hardly strictly professional, either. But Hannibal wasn’t his psychiatrist, Will reminded himself.)

“I’ll leave you to rest, then,” Hannibal said after a pause, and his hand slipped away.

“Hannibal,” Will blurted out, reaching out and catching Hannibal’s wrist before he could think. For a moment, they both froze, uncertain of what would come next. Will’s body was cold where Hannibal had been touching him moments before.

Finally, Hannibal spoke. “I’ll stay.”

Will swallowed. His heart jumped in his chest, chasing away a bit of the fatigue that had taken over him, drove some of the heaviness from his eyes. “I want,” he began, and faltered. He took a shuddering breath and tried again. “I want you to touch me again,” he said.

Something flashed across Hannibal’s face that Will couldn’t quite read, but the other man didn’t protest. He lay down slowly beside Will on the bed; Will turned his head to face him.

“It’s, uh, helping me relax,” he said lamely.

“I’m glad,” Hannibal said simply. He reached out to Will’s shoulder, frowning a bit at the tension that Will knew had built back up already; Will huffed a laugh and unclenched the fist he hadn’t even known he was holding.

“Better,” Hannibal murmured. Hannibal’s touch moved down to his chest then; hot, heavy, but gentle. Fingers probed his ribs, palms smoothed over pectorals. Again, callouses caught lightly on cotton. Will tilted his chin and shifted his gaze to Hannibal’s face, searching for some expression, some indication of emotion that the man’s voice refused to betray.

He didn’t find it.

Moonlight peeked through the curtains behind Hannibal’s head, silhouetting him so he was like a dark angel beside him. Will felt Hannibal’s touch on his collarbones, fingers dipping into the hollow of his throat and reaching up to his jugular, where the thick, hot blood of his life rushed fast and desperate under Hannibal’s thumb.

Hannibal was cradling his throat now, thumb and index finger rolling across tendons on either side of his neck. Will swallowed, felt the push of the movement against Hannibal’s touch. Hannibal was no longer touching to ground or relax; no, Hannibal was _caressing_ him, touching with the gentleness and reverence of a lover.

He wondered if Hannibal knew that he was seducing him, and then Will wondered if it was Hannibal seducing him, or the feeling of the Ripper in Hannibal’s touch that was pulling him forward. Because he felt _known_ under Hannibal’s hands; he felt understood in the way the Ripper understood his victims but given the same care the Ripper would show an equal.

Hannibal slipped his hands down to Will’s chest and shoulders again, the heat of him pushing away knots and scar tissue. Will let out a long breath and closed his eyes, let himself be absorbed by Hannibal’s touch, let himself melt under the other man’s hands. The warmth of Hannibal’s palm spread through him like a slow flood, and distantly, inexplicably, he understood that the touch was deceiving, that those hands which were so gentle and good to him now were capable of just as much destruction and devastation. He understood that those hands had lulled him into almost-sleep, that he was helpless under the other man’s ministrations, that Hannibal was hypnotizing and Will could do nothing about it.

Will swallowed again, felt his heart pound harder at the thought.

Hannibal paused by the buttons of Will’s shirt. “May I?” he asked quietly.

Will swallowed. “Yeah,” he rasped, and his breaths came quick and shallow in his throat. He said it without thinking, but it felt right, and he didn’t care.

Hannibal undid the buttons slowly but deftly, every movement purposeful. When each button had been slipped out of its buttonhole, Hannibal drew the sides of Will’s shirt apart, being careful not to touch him; Will felt the whisper of cloth against his ribs, the sudden shock of cold on his exposed skin.

Hannibal paused, and Will felt his eyes on him, and the goosebumps that prickled on Will’s arms weren’t entirely because of the cold.

Will dared to look at him, and he drew in a shaky breath at the difference he saw. His expression was almost hungry now, his eyes black in the darkness. For a few moments, he was absolutely still, and then he reached out and placed his hand on Will’s belly.

Will shuddered when Hannibal touched him; his mouth parted in a slight gasp, his muscles tensed under Hannibal’s fingertips as he arched up into the other man’s touch. His palm was hot now against Will’s bare skin.

“Relax,” Hannibal murmured, and began to move. His fingers pressed gently into the softness of Will’s belly, his palm moving in hypnotizing circles. Will felt him tracing his ribs, dipping under the soft costal cartilage that kept him together, mapping out his body and the soft organs lying so vulnerable under his touch. His hand slipped lower, fingertips easing just under the hem of Will’s pants, under the elastic of his boxers to the scraping of hair that rested there.

Will’s lips parted. “Hannibal,” he whispered.

“I can stop,” Hannibal said, and his voice was still calm and poised, the bastard. “Just ask me.”

“I don’t –” Will began, and then broke off to take a breath, to meet Hannibal’s eyes. In them, he saw hot, devastating hunger, and he knew what Hannibal wanted. When he spoke in response, his voice was barely audible, but it was certain. “I don’t want you to stop.”

“Do you think the Ripper is in love with me?” Will asked, when it was over and he and Hannibal lay next to each other in the darkness. Will had climaxed, and Hannibal had pulled him through it, and that had been all; Hannibal had refused to let Will return the favor.

There was a long moment of silence, so long that Will thought Hannibal had fallen asleep beside him. But then Hannibal spoke, and his words were soft but clear. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think so.”

“Is a man like that even capable of love?” Will asked, and he didn’t dare meet Hannibal’s eyes, didn’t dare let the other man see that he wasn’t just asking for the Ripper, he was asking for himself, asking if a man who liked to kill or thought he liked to kill was capable of love, asking if a man like him was capable of feeling what he didn’t dare begin to think he felt for Hannibal, what he felt for Abigail.

“What does your mind tell you?” Hannibal asked in turn.

“My mind?” Will huffed a laugh. “I don’t know. I think…I think yes. Maybe. Or at least, men like him are capable of understanding the concept of love and do their best to express it. His version of love might be different from society’s version of love, of course, but it’s love all the same.” He tilted his head slightly, just enough that he could see Hannibal out of the corner of his eye; Hannibal was facing him directly, and his eyes glinted in the darkness. Will couldn’t tell if Hannibal knew he was talking about himself too, trying to justify that men like the Ripper and men like Will Graham were capable of loving.

“The Ripper killed Garret Jacob Hobbs,” Will said.

Hannibal watched him. There was no question in his expression, no expectation for Will to speak. Will wondered how he knew that, how he suddenly knew that Hobbs hadn’t killed himself in that cell, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He just knew that the feeling of danger had spiked, because he was getting close to the truth, and the truth could kill him. He knew that he relished that feeling.

No, Hobbs hadn’t killed himself. The Ripper had gotten him locked up to get him out of the way, to get Will to focus on the Ripper’s cases, but that hadn’t been enough. Hobbs needed to be out of the way for good, in the most permanent way possible.

The Ripper had killed Hobbs out of love.

There was a pause, and then Hannibal spoke. “Have you been thinking of the Ripper all this time?”

Will felt a sudden, hard clench in his gut. “No,” he said. “Not all this time.”

“Mm.” Hannibal paused, and then rolled over and sat up. “I think you are capable of love, Will, if that’s what you were asking. That’s what you feel for Abigail, is it not?”

Hannibal’s back was to him now. Will couldn’t read the other man’s expression, nor could he see the man’s emotions in the lines of his body. He was perfectly silent, impassive, stone-like.

Hannibal stood. “I’ll leave you to sleep,” he said, and he closed the door behind him as he left, and then Will was alone.


	5. Chapter 5

MAY

_Have you been thinking of the Ripper all this time?_

_No. Not all this time._

Will opened his eyes. It was spring now—deep into spring, with birds twittering on the branches outside and flowers coming into full bloom. He’d seen Hannibal a handful of times since that night, thought about Hannibal a multitude more. He’d thought about Hannibal’s hands on his body, the brilliance of Hannibal’s mind, the way Hannibal had touched him like he was art and Hannibal was just finding the right way to display him.

Will’s lips parted; he exhaled in a shaky breath. He wondered, if he accepted the Ripper, if the Ripper would touch him in the same way. He wondered what the Ripper might make him into; a young birch where butterflies could rest their wings, perhaps? Or a caricature of death, dragged up from the depths of the river by a lonely fisherman?

No, he thought; the Ripper would make him into something new.

He wondered if he would be okay with that. If giving himself up to the Ripper would be enough, if it stopped him from killing, would he do it? Would he _like_ it? Would he be alright with the idea of being the Ripper’s victim?

But he was already the Ripper’s, in a way. The Ripper already held him captive.

Will took a deep breath, swung his legs over the side of his bed, sat up. His phone buzzed as he headed towards the kitchen; it was Beverly.

“Will,” Beverly said as soon as he picked up. “Thank God, I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour.”

“It’s six in the morning, Beverly,” Will mumbled. “Why, what’s going on?”

“It’s Abigail,” Beverly said, and Will was instantly awake; his heart thudded at the urgency in her voice. “I don’t know how she found out, if she was tipped or something, but Freddie Lounds posted something on Tattlecrime. It’s from a few days ago, but she says Abigail is the Minnesota Shrike’s daughter.”

“Shit.” Will was already back in his bedroom, pulling on clothes and grabbing his gun and keys.

“Will,” Beverly said. “Will, relax, just—just wait for Jack, okay? He’s not in yet but I’ll call him, you’re a two-hour drive away from her and he’ll be able to get there faster than you can—”

“Jack’s deposed to court today,” Will said harshly. “Told me last night. How old is the article?”

“Two days.”

Will let out a breath. Alright. Not too long ago. Still a chance that it wouldn’t have gotten as far as Minnesota where the Shrike had been active; still a chance that no one who might want to hurt her in retaliation had seen it yet. “Did it mention where she lived?”

“Not exactly. I’ll send it to you. Will, I’m sure it’s nothing—”

“You can’t be sure,” Will said. “I’m going. Now. I’ll tell you if I need anything once I get there.”

Beverly hesitated for a long moment, and then exhaled sharply. “Fine. I’ll wait. But you need to promise to let me know once you’re there, otherwise I’m sending someone after you. Yes?”

“Fine.”

“You’d better.” There was a pause. “Good luck.”

“Hopefully I don’t need it. Talk to you soon.”

Will was in the car minutes later. His hands shook as he turned on the ignition, as he pulled out of his driveway and onto the road; it wasn’t quite rush hour yet, and the roads were clear. Will stepped on the gas, felt the jump of the engine. There was a light sheen of sweat on his palms and around his temples, a pervading sense of anxiety and dread that blurred the edges of his vision, made it feel like he was in a dream. He dialed Abigail’s number, cursed when it wasn’t answered, dialed it again.

Still, no answer.

“Shit,” he muttered. It didn’t have to mean anything; he’d missed several of Beverly’s calls just this morning, after all. But he couldn’t be sure of that, he couldn’t dismiss it as nothing until he had proof she was alright.

He called a third time an hour later to no avail, but he was less than half an hour to Abigail’s house by the time he thought of calling Hannibal. He pulled out his phone again, fingers fumbling to dial Hannibal’s number; it rang twice before it was answered.

“Will,” Hannibal greeted.

“They know, Hannibal,” Will blurted out, and his voice was shaking. “They know about Abigail. Someone—Freddie Lounds—she knows who Abigail is. She found out. She wrote an article, it’s published online saying where she is, _who_ she is, it’s…I don’t know how many people have seen it, but if there’s anyone at all who wants to hurt her, they have everything they need to find her. I’m going to her now, I need to make sure she’s alright—”

“Will,” Hannibal said, and his voice was soft but it cut through Will’s scattered, trembling thoughts. “Will, you need to calm down. Are you driving right now?”

Will swallowed. “Yes. Been driving for the past hour and a half. I’m about twenty-five minutes to her place.”

Hannibal took a deep breath. “I see. Given the situation, I’m not going to give you a lecture on the dangers of driving while on the phone, but I will ask you as a personal favor to calm down and focus on driving safely. Can you do that?”

Will swallowed again. “Yes.”

“Good. Now about Abigail, you’re heading to her to check on her. Do you need me to be there?”

“I…yes,” Will said shakily. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea.”

“I’ll be there,” Hannibal said. “But I’m an hour drive away from her; you’ll get there a while before me.”

“Just get there as soon as you can,” Will said.

“Understood. I’ll need a few minutes to rearrange a few sessions I had scheduled for today, and I’ll head out immediately afterwards. See you soon.”

Will hung up and stepped on the gas. He pulled up to Abigail’s driveway twenty-two minutes later; there was a light on in two of the windows and a car in the driveway. Nothing in the front yard seemed undisturbed.

He turned off the ignition, stepped out of the car, walked up the walkway and rang the bell; he could hear its echo on the other side of the door and his heart thudded in his throat as several seconds went by without answering. He told himself that it was nothing, that he had just come by at an inopportune time when no one was home, and then he heard footsteps approaching and the door swung open a moment later.

Will’s breath left him in a huff. “Abigail,” he said.

Abigail sounded surprised and more than a little confused when she greeted him, but she invited him inside anyway. Will muttered his thanks, stepped in and let Abigail shut the door behind him. For a fleeting moment, the sun streamed in around his shadow and turned the red floorboards to liquid blood, flooding the house and rising around their feet, soaking into their socks and clawing its way up the fabric of their pants, and then the door closed, shutting out the sun, and the hallucination ended. Abigail was in front of him, and the floorboards were simple wood again.

Will clenched his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, followed Abigail into the kitchen where she was finishing unloading the dishwasher. _This_ was real, not the blood-soaked floor; Abigail was in front of him, and she was alive, and she wasn’t hurt. The rest was just his paranoia.

There was a slight rasp in his voice when he asked her why she wasn’t at school, where her mother was; he paused to clear his throat. She explained that the school had given students days off for staff meetings and that her mother had walked over to a friend’s house to drop off something they’d borrowed earlier that week. She put the last of the dishes from the dishwasher into the cabinets and turned around so her back was to the counter; she folded her arms casually across her chest and tilted her head.

"So what brings you here?” she asked. “It’s a long drive, isn’t it?”

Will exhaled, rubbed his palms on the front of his pants. “Yeah. We—well, a friend at the FBI—saw something earlier. It’s probably nothing, but you didn’t pick up when I called and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Abigail frowned, but she sounded amused. “So…I didn’t pick up because my phone was on silent and you drove two hours to come see me? Sorry about that, by the way, since I’m actually okay.”

Will huffed a laugh. “You make me sound impulsive when you put it that way.” He paused. “You haven’t seen anyone unusual around here, right? No one lingering around your house or school, nothing like that?”

For a moment, Abigail was silent, and her face looked strange, pale and shrunken and skin stretched tight over bone, like everything inside was already dead and rotting. And then Will blinked, and she was smiling again, her cheeks warm and her lips red and her eyes bright and clear, and it had just been a hallucination.

“Nothing,” she said. A pause. “Does this have to do with my father?”

There was another beat of silence. “Yes,” Will said finally. “There’s a chance that someone knows who you are. I’m here to make sure no one has tried to hurt you, and that no one will try to hurt you in the future.”

“I’m…touched that you’d drive so far out to see me, but you didn’t need to. I’m fine. Really.”

There was something strange about her voice as she spoke, something that caused the hairs on the back of Will’s neck to prickle. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but it told him that there was something he was missing. Like the swallows and the Shrike, it should have been staring him in the face, but he wasn’t seeing it.

But Abigail was here, and she was fine, and he’d already hallucinated twice since walking in her door. He’d ask the FBI to keep a closer eye on her, but he’d trust her. She would tell him the truth even when the rest of his reality started to slip through the cracks.

Will hesitated, and then nodded. “Alright.” He sent Beverly a quick text, telling her that everything was fine, turned back to Abigail. “How are you doing otherwise?”

Abigail’s smile faltered. She told him was doing fine—as fine as anyone could be in her situation, at least; she still had nightmares, and there were times when all she could think of was holding the knife out towards her father and knowing that she wouldn’t hesitate to use it against him if she had to. But she was doing well in school, getting back into the old hobbies she’d enjoyed, trying to find some peace.

A small, soft smile spread itself across Will’s face at that. She deserved to find some peace.

He found himself upstairs after they spoke; he told her he wanted to check the rest of house, make sure there was nothing there that shouldn’t be. There were no signs of a break-in in the rooms at the top of the stairs, nothing that would indicate anyone had been there other than the two people living in the house. There was nothing to indicate that there was anything wrong at all, and yet the prickling at the back of his neck was still there, telling him that _everything_ was wrong. _He_ was wrong. There was something he was missing—something huge, something deadly.

He walked down the carpeted hallway, towards the two rooms that remained at the end of it, but stumbled suddenly, catching himself against the wall; his vision blurred for a moment, and black spots swam before his eyes. There was a sudden dull pain in his temples, a knot of nausea in his gut.

He swallowed, took a slow, deep breath, straightened. It was his encephalitis, it had to be. He leaned against the wall on another round of dizziness, squeezed his eyes shut briefly, and when he opened them again he found himself on his knees with sweat dripping from his chin. His hands were trembling, his breath shaking, and he didn’t know how much time he’d lost.

Down the stairs, glass shattered.

 _Abigail_.

He was moving before he even knew what he was doing. There was no fighting, no blows being exchanged; just a frantic, rapidly weakening drumming like a trapped bird, and he knew it was Abigail’s life, and he ran. When he reached the bottom of the stairs and rounded the hall into the kitchen, he saw a man with his back facing the doorway and his hands around Abigail’s throat.

Her face was like a ghost.

Without hesitation, Will drew his gun and put a bullet in the man’s shoulder.

The man let out a cry of pain and surprise, stumbling and releasing Abigail, who fell soundlessly to the ground. The man turned—and no, he wasn’t a man, he was a _boy_ , barely older than Abigail herself, but his face was twisted in a snarl and there was fury setting fire in his eyes. In the moment before the boy lunged, Will saw the Shrike in the boy’s face, and then he saw wings spreading from the boy’s shoulders and antlers sprouting from the boy’s head, skin and eyes turned black like midnight.

Will lifted the gun and pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times. It was as if things happened in slow motion then; he could feel the kick from the gun in the bones of his hand, reaching back up his arm into his shoulder. He saw each bullet in its crisp, clear flight from the nozzle until it erupted in a small spray of blood in the boy’s chest, felt a clench deep in his gut as the boy jerked back with the impact, drew in a choked-off, rattling breath, and sank to his knees. It was the Wendigo kneeling and bleeding out, and then it was the boy again.

It was like there was electricity running through Will’s veins. He was at Abigail’s side by the time the boy fell forward onto his hands, had his fingers pressed gently into Abigail’s throat for a pulse by the time the boy sank to the ground with rattling breaths. His lungs would be collapsing, and the bullets would no doubt have done significant damage, and Will’s fingers were on Abigail’s throat under delicate jaw and blue lips and he couldn’t find a pulse.

 _Abigail_.

His chest clenched; his lips parted but he didn’t know if he made a sound. He heard someone say her name, chanting it over and over again as someone shook her body as if it would shake the life back into her, and it took him a moment to realize that it was him, that the broken noises of horror and grief were from him.

Faintly, he remembered his training, the little bit of medical knowledge that had been drilled into him while he was still at the academy; CPR, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. His hands trembled, his heart pounded wildly in his chest as if to make up for the beats Abigail didn’t have when several minutes passed and she refused to respond.

He didn’t want to acknowledge it. He didn’t to step away from her body and acknowledge that she was gone, that she was dead, that he had been _right there_ with there and he still hadn’t been able to save her.

There was rage, then. Fire coursing through his chest, surging out and crackling at his fingertips. He turned to the boy behind him—not quite dead yet, though he would be soon—and he had a gun, but he didn’t want to use it. He wanted to pull the life from the boy’s throat the way the boy had pulled the life from Abigail’s.

“No,” the boy gasped, reaching out weakly as Will approached him. “No, please—”

Will ignored him. He shoved the boy over onto his back, straddled him and wrapped his fingers around the boy’s neck. He felt the boy’s pulse beating weakly; the boy’s hands, covered in his own blood from where he’d tried in vain to stem the bleeding, scrabbled at Will’s arms. Fingers bruised; nails dug into skin, but Will didn’t feel the pain. He squeezed, grimacing at the way the boy reached up to push at his face, trying to weaken his grip, and felt the desperate pounding of the boy’s heart through the pulse under his hands.

It was exhilarating. He hadn’t broken skin but Will could feel the blood flowing through the boy’s veins as clearly as if he’d plunged his hands into the cold of a singing stream, and he could feel the boy’s life like it was a line tangled around his fingers. It tightened, fighting back against him, trying desperately to hold on and keep itself whole, but it was giving way, and soon it would snap.

The boy’s grip faded; the rushing of his heart slowed to a stop. Desperately beating fingers stilled and fell lifeless to the ground.

He was dead, and Will had killed him.

There was a pain in Will’s temples. He should have felt horror, guilt, disgust— _shame_ , at having killed, but he felt none of that. He felt _righteous_ , like he’d dealt justice, like he’d restored balance to his world by taking life from a boy who had taken life from Abigail.

He wanted to commemorate it.

Will was only half-conscious of the events that followed. His vision faded in and out of clarity; he moved as if in a haze, his body acting out of his complete control. He became aware at one point of the boy’s body still in front of him, shirt ripped open to expose the bare chest. The next moment of lucidity was when the chest had been carved into and the sternum split down the middle, and Will’s hands were inside, feeling the still-hot blood and the soft organs slipping through his fingers. He looked at the heart with a detached curiosity, sank his fingers into it, nails ripping through membrane and muscle as red ink spilled out around them. He brought it to his lips, let the blood run over his tongue, tasted the salty-sweet tang of it. Then his vision blurred and the world faded.

In the end, it was Hannibal who found him, sitting with his back against a wall, staring blindly out in front of him. There was a creak of the front door opening, the soft click of it latching shut. Soft taps of footsteps on a wooden floor. A shadow in the periphery of Will’s vision; a soft voice, calling his name.

Will looked up. “Hannibal,” he rasped. It took him several tries to speak.

“I was afraid you were dead,” Hannibal said quietly, and there was a slight shake to his voice. “I called you half an hour ago, around the time you should have arrived. When you didn’t answer, I feared the worst.” He knelt beside Will; Will’s eyes followed his movement, focused on his face, saw the boy’s body behind him.

He began to shake. “Hannibal,” Will said again, and he was reaching out blindly, scrabbling, fumbling for something to hold onto, and then Hannibal was there, steadying him as he doubled over and retched blood—the boy’s blood—catching his reaching hands and holding them tight.

“Will,” Hannibal murmured, and Will latched onto the calm of his voice, the low silk, the tether that was keeping him grounded. “Will, you need to relax. Focus on your breathing.”

Will was gasping; he focused on that, the shaky exhale and too-fast, too-sharp inhale, tried to slow it down, tried to even it out. He felt Hannibal’s thumb rubbing soothing circles into the back of his hand, felt the gentle press of his fingers into his palm and wrist. He counted with each breath: five circles in, five circles out. Now slower; six and six.

“Abigail,” Will began, and his voice was unsteady. “Abigail, she’s—”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Hannibal said gently. “This is not your fault, Will.”

“She’s dead,” Will bit out. “She’s dead, I saw her, I should’ve stopped him—”

“You don’t know he killed her,” Hannibal said.

“What—I _saw_ him,” Will snapped, and he was gripping Hannibal’s hands back now, nails digging into soft skin, hands trembling with the strength of his hold. “I saw him, Hannibal, he killed her, I saw him with his hands around her throat. I saw her face turn pale, I saw her die as he strangled her in front of me and I was too late but I should’ve stopped him, I—”

“Will.” Hannibal’s voice was sharp, urgent; Will looked up at him.

“I saw him,” Will whispered.

There was worry in Hannibal’s expression now. “Will,” he said, and his voice was gentle. “Will, Abigail’s been dead for days now. So has her mother. The bodies were in the other room.”

 _No._ Will recoiled, horror and revulsion rising in the back of his throat; he pulled away from Hannibal, pushed the other man away because no, he’d seen the boy with his hands around Abigail’s neck and he’d seen the blueness of Abigail’s lips, heard her trying to breathe and saw her clawing at the boy standing above her wringing the life from her body—

“Will,” Hannibal said, and he reached out to him but Will shrank back again because he couldn’t believe him, he couldn’t believe Hannibal was telling the truth and that his illness had gotten this bad, but he couldn’t believe Hannibal would lie. Not about this.

“I talked to her,” Will said, and he couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice, the uncertainty in himself because surely he’d seen and heard it all? Surely he’d seen her answer the door, surely he’d been talking to someone other than a lifeless corpse on the floor. “I talked to her,” he said again desperately, and it felt like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Hannibal. “I saw her in front of me when I got here, I talked to her, and then I…I was gone for just a minute, I don’t know, I should’ve stayed with her but I don’t know what happened and I was…I wasn’t there, and when I came back he was killing her and I-I couldn’t…”

His throat seized; he couldn’t speak. But he’d been there. He _knew_ he’d been there. He’d known something was off but he’d talked to Abigail, she’d been _right in front of him_ and then he’d come back and she’d been dead and it had been his fault, it had been because he hadn’t been there when she most needed him. And he’d seen the boy standing there with his hands around Abigail’s throat and then he’d killed Abigail and there had been so much _anger_ —

“I killed him,” Will said, about the boy. The words left his mouth in a huff of breath. “I killed him,” Will repeated, and scrambled back until his back hit the corner and there was nowhere left for him to go. “Oh, God, I killed him, and the Ripper wanted this, the Ripper—”

“Will,” Hannibal said, and he stood and walked forward but there was nowhere for Will to go so he sat there, bringing his knees up to his chest and hugging them to himself as if they would protect him, and he let Hannibal approach until he was once again in front of him, kneeling in front of him, his expression gentle.

“What did I do?” Will whispered. His gaze traveled to the boy’s body behind Hannibal and he felt bile rise in his throat; the boy’s ribs had been ripped open, bent and skinned to be shown like wings, the heart completely destroyed. It was crude, and it was rushed, but it was mutilation with a purpose, and he could still taste the boy’s blood on his lips.

Just killing the boy hadn’t been enough.

“Jack will have seen the article and he will know you’ve come here, if he doesn’t already,” Hannibal said quietly. “If he finds out and asks about the boy, we can tell him that it was an accident.”

“As if he’s going to believe that was an accident,” Will said numbly.

“I’ll talk to him,” Hannibal murmured. “He’ll listen.”

“It wasn’t,” Will said, ignoring Hannibal. “Killing him wasn’t an accident. _That_ ,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the boy’s body, “wasn’t an accident. I… _wanted_ …to do it.”

“Do you want Jack to know that?”

Will swallowed, didn’t answer.

Hannibal’s expression was gentle. “Wait here. I’ll take a closer look at the body and see what I can come up with, and then we’ll deal with everything else,” he said. He touched Will’s shoulder gently, reassuringly, and stood. “We’ll deal with Jack and the FBI when we need to.”

Will let him go without a word. He felt like his mind was blank, although there was a steadily increasing throbbing at his temples; he watched numbly as Hannibal examine the body, and briefly, intermittently, Hannibal turned into the boy, and the boy’s body on the floor turned into Abigail’s, and it was the boy splitting open Abigail’s chest, the boy pulling out her heart and sinking his fingers into it as blood spilled like overflowing wine. And then he blinked, and it was Hannibal crouching over the boy’s body again, and Abigail was dead and had never been there.

In the end, Hannibal disposed of the body. Will sat there half-hidden in the growing shadows, staring blankly at where the boy’s body had lain. He remembered the feeling of his fingers around the long, slender neck, the furiously working throat as the boy tried in vain to draw breath. The face growing pale like Abigail’s, the desperate terror in the boy’s eyes.

That couldn’t be an accident. Even if he claimed self-defense, it should be unbelievable that mutilation to that extent had been necessary.

Hannibal returned after the sun had slipped down past the horizon. The door creaked and clicked shut; footsteps fell quietly and evenly on the hardwood floor, and then Hannibal was next to Will again. His touched Will’s shoulder briefly, gentle and reassuring, but Will could only think of his own hands around the boy’s throat and how it felt to have them there. Abigail’s death was like a distant dream, hazy and foggy and unreal.

“It’s done,” Hannibal murmured. “The body won’t be found. Are you alright?”

“Why did you do it?” Will rasped. “Why are you helping me?”

“I don’t want your future to be tainted by the events out of your control that happened today,” Hannibal said simply.

Will swallowed. “I killed him,” he said unsteadily. “I _mutilated_ him. And it…it started out of rage, but rage doesn’t create, it destroys. And I…created. I took his bones and turned them into wings. It wasn’t finished, but it was supposed to be. I was supposed to find meaning in everything I did so I could turn him into a work of art. Most of that was under my control.” He broke off; a tremor ran through his body. “I’m-I’m changing, Hannibal. It’s happening; the thing I was afraid of since the beginning.”

“Will, you are not the Ripper.”

“I know that,” Will bit out. He sounded out of control even to himself. “But not being the Ripper is different from doing what the Ripper wants. He _wanted_ this, Hannibal,” he said, and he looked desperately up at the other man, willing Hannibal to shake his head and say _no, you’re being paranoid, you’re making up situations in your mind_ and _no, this had nothing to do with the Ripper_ , but Hannibal was impassive, and Will knew that Hannibal knew just as well as he did that he had done exactly what the Ripper had planned for him. “And the worst is that I knew,” he rasped. “I knew what he was doing, I knew what I would be getting myself into, and I did it anyway. I can’t…I can’t avoid him. I can’t help but do everything he tells me to.”

Hannibal held out a hand, gently, almost tenderly. “He’s manipulating you, yes, I agree, but the most important step in resisting manipulation is recognizing it for what it is. You’ve done that, Will.”

Will shook his head. “This is the exact outcome he wanted, Hannibal,” he whispered. “Do you understand that? He would have been one of the victim’s brothers. Cassie Boyle’s brother, maybe. He might have come to hurt Abigail, but he didn’t, because she was already dead. I…I killed him over nothing.”

“You didn’t know it was nothing. You can’t blame yourself for your health condition,” Hannibal murmured. “You can’t blame yourself for hallucinations.”

“The law can,” Will said, but he took Hannibal’s hand, let the other man pull him to his feet. He felt less shaky under Hannibal’s touch and he let the other man steady him, ground him. “The Ripper wants me to join him. We all know that. It’s what he wanted from the beginning. And doing this to me, manipulating me into this situation…it’s as if the Ripper knows—or thinks he knows—that once I kill for the first time, I’ll inevitably join him.” He swallowed, looked helplessly at Hannibal. “And I’ve just killed for the first time.” _And Abigail is dead._ It was a bit easier, somehow, to think that she’d been dead for days already, that he’d failed her days ago and miles away instead of just now with her right in front of him.

Hannibal met his gaze evenly. “But do you agree that you will inevitably join him?”

“No,” Will said immediately. He knew it sounded desperate, but Hannibal accepted it as truth and did not question him.

“But I killed him for nothing,” Will continued quietly. “I thought…I thought I’d killed him to protect Abigail, but she was…she was dead already. I killed him but it won’t bring her back.”

“You can’t blame yourself for your illness,” Hannibal began again.

“I _ripped him apart_ , Hannibal. And I liked it,” Will spat out, almost without thinking, and the raw honesty and ugliness of what he said shocked him, but he relished in the stunned silence that met him nevertheless. He realized that it was true, but he wanted Hannibal to be stunned, wanted Hannibal to be afraid of him. He wanted Hannibal to _understand_ , to hear and accept that the fear and horror he felt was partly at the act of killing and in doing so falling into the Ripper’s trap, and partly at himself for enjoying it.

Hannibal stared at him for another few moments, and then he moved; it was a slight shift towards him, a dropping of the shoulders, a curve of the lips, but Will could read his body and he knew that Hannibal had heard him, and he wouldn’t leave him.

Will’s head pounded. It wasn’t right, for Hannibal to stay with him. For Hannibal to care for him.

“He said I’d fall by autumn,” Will said quietly anyway, speaking because he knew Hannibal would stay and he would listen and he would try to understand. “With Daniel Cates. The Ripper was telling me that I’d have made a decision by autumn, whether it’s accepting him, or whether it’s…whether it’s dying.” A wry smile tugged at his mouth. “I suppose, for better or for worse, it’s nice to know it’ll all be over by then.”

“And Abigail represented that for you,” Hannibal murmured.

Will flinched a little at that. Nature or nurture. The Ripper or the society that he’d spent his life trying to protect. The Minnesota Shrike or Abigail Hobbs. Inevitability or agency.

“You told me that you wanted her dead,” Hannibal said.

“No,” Will said, even though he’d just killed a boy who he thought had killed Abigail and he thought he’d seen the boy killing her when she’d been dead for days and he didn’t know if he could trust his memory for anything, but he couldn’t believe that he could have loved Abigail and said that he wanted her dead.

“No,” Will repeated, as though it would make it true. “I saw the worst part of myself in her. I saw inevitability. I wanted that dead. But I didn’t want…I didn’t want _her_ dead. Not like that.”

His head was hurting. He hadn’t wanted Abigail dead, he’d wanted her to escape what the world said about her and prove that she didn’t have to be her father, prove that she could fight against what they’d both known was inside her and find her peace. He’d wanted to care for her; he’d wanted to be there for her.

He’d loved her.

“It’s not your fault,” Hannibal said.

“Isn’t it?” Will asked bitterly. “If I hadn’t cared for her, if the Ripper hadn’t known—” He broke off, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Will?” Hannibal asked quietly. “Will, are you alright?” His hands were on Will now, gentle on his shoulder, tender on his cheek. Will leaned into him, let his lips part around a shuddering breath.

“Will?” Hannibal repeated.

“I’m…I’m fine,” Will mumbled. He straightened, swallowed, ignored the throbbing in his head.

“Let’s sit down,” Hannibal murmured, and Will let him lead him to a chair in the other room. He started, stumbled briefly; there was blood on the floor, spreading in a puddle from the boy’s body, lying prone on the polished hardwood. But no, Hannibal had taken the body out, the boy was gone—so it must be Abigail’s body lying there, still leaking blood after days of being dead, her life still seeping out as if reminding Will that he was responsible, as if _teasing_ him that he could still save her—

He blinked, and it all vanished. It was just a dining table, six chairs arranged haphazardly around it, light spilling in gently from the window. The boy was dead, and so was Abigail, and both were gone.

Hannibal guided him to one of the seats; he sat down heavily, leaned into Hannibal’s hands. “I liked it,” he said hoarsely. “I liked killing him. I didn’t even know who he was.”

“You said he knew one of the Shrike’s victims,” Hannibal said. “Likely Cassie Boyle’s brother.”

Will huffed a laugh; it sounded helpless, lost. “As if I can trust my mind now. I don’t know, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I was just making all of that up. I’m…I feel alone, Hannibal. I’m alone in my own mind and I don’t know what to trust or who to trust. I can’t…I can’t think.”

“You’re not alone, Will,” Hannibal said, and Will glanced at him, latched onto Hannibal’s touch as he took Will’s hand. “I’m here with you. You can trust me.”

A faint, broken smile tugged at Will’s mouth. Was he hearing that? Or was this just something else that he was imagining? Then again, it didn’t matter, he supposed, it didn’t matter what he heard or what he thought he heard. In the end, the law didn’t care if the killer hallucinated or not. Either way they ended up locked up.

“I liked killing him,” Will said, boldly now, because for that moment he didn’t care what Hannibal thought, he didn’t care if Hannibal would regret what he’d said and get up and leave. “It felt good. It felt powerful. What do you say to that, Hannibal?”

It came out as a challenge, and Will didn’t care. Hannibal was silent for a few moments, and then he smiled gently, squeezed Will’s hand. “I would say that I know, and that I’ve known, and that I’m still here with you.”

There was a squeezing in Will’s chest, and suddenly, he wanted Hannibal to stay.

“I’m listening, Will,” Hannibal murmured.

Will swallowed, focused on the slight catch of Hannibal’s calloused hands on his skin, felt the tenderness in his touch and how the fingers traced the veins and tendons in the back of Will’s hand, felt the way their fingers slotted together.

“I wanted,” he began, and his voice was a rasp. He cleared his throat, tried again. “I wanted to make him beautiful,” Will said. “I wanted to…to _answer_. To create.”

“But you couldn’t,” Hannibal said.

“Jack will know I’ve come here,” Will said wryly. He couldn’t meet Hannibal’s eyes; he stared at a point on the floor, at the point where blood had been spreading just a few moments before from a body that was no longer there. “He’ll find out about the boy. He’ll inevitably come to me with questions. If I’d displayed him fully, everyone would know who had done it. But I wanted to anyway.”

“You feel a sort of kinship with the Ripper in that regard,” Hannibal said.

“Yes,” Will said. His head pounded; he winced, flinched away from Hannibal, and he felt the other man’s concern through his touch.

“Yes,” Will repeated, waving away Hannibal’s concern with a shaky hand. “I feel a kinship with him. And I can’t help wonder…I don’t want to accept him. I don’t want it to be inevitable. But what if, in some way, I wished that it could be, or I’m starting to believe that it is? With Hobbs—what if I was angry that he killed himself because _I_ wanted to be the one to kill him? What if I was angry because he took that from me?” It wasn’t actually a question. He knew that part of him had always wondered what it would have been like to be the one to kill Garret Jacob Hobbs, and part of him had always regretted that he hadn’t been the one to do it.

“Garret Jacob Hobbs—”

“Didn’t kill himself, I know,” Will said. “But at the time I thought he did, and what I felt was based on that belief. Either way, he was dead, and I was angry about that, and I knew I wasn’t only angry because Abigail had lost a father as well as a home. It was because I wanted…because it was about more than just revenge. It was about wanting him to be dead because of me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, remembered the feeling of Garret Jacob Hobbs’s throat in his hands, the desperate working of the muscles in his throat, trying to let him breathe despite Will’s grip. Or—no, that wasn’t a memory, that hadn’t been something he’d done, it had just been what he _wanted_ to do, ruminated over so many times that it had become more familiar to him than reality.

“You put him behind bars,” Hannibal said. “Given the evidence, there is a good chance he would have ended up in the electric chair even if he hadn’t died prematurely. He was as good as dead as soon as you figured out who he was.”

Will laughed bitterly, shook his head. “No, that’s not what I meant. I wanted to kill him _personally_.”

Hannibal paused, and then leaned forward slightly. “How?”

A dry smile spread itself over Will’s face. “With my hands,” he rasped. “The same way I saw Abigail die, with the boy’s hands around her throat. I’d want to feel his breaths disintegrate. I’d want to feel the beat of his heart under my palms, the blood rushing until I cut it off. I’d want to feel the moment his life left his body.”

Hannibal’s lips parted; for a moment, Will thought he could see his breath misting in the cold air, and then he blinked, and the air was the warmth of May again. Still, Hannibal was close enough that Will could see his pupils dilate ever so slightly, see the delicate flush that spread across the height of his cheeks, and Will knew that wasn’t a hallucination.

“How would you have subdued him?”

“Oh, he would have been subdued from the moment we were in the same room together,” Will said, and he felt alive thinking about it. “He would have tried to fight; all prey animals do when they know they can no longer run. I can hardly blame him for that. But inevitably death comes, and from that there is no escaping. I would have cornered him, pushed him down to the ground like I was death, like I was a god. He would know that his life was mine for the taking.”

“A cornered animal is unpredictable,” Hannibal said. His voice was gravelly.

Will’s cheek twitched; it was an attempt at a wry smile. “Yes,” he agreed. “But what’s the fun if you know exactly what’s going to happen all the time?”

Hannibal’s eyes glinted; they looked almost black. “And would you have displayed him after you killed him?”

“Yes,” Will said immediately. “But not like he did with his victims; I wouldn’t display him because he deserved to be honored. I wouldn’t apologize, because I wouldn’t feel like there was anything to apologize for. He was a bad man and he’d deserve what was coming to him. No, I would display him because displaying him would be a final act of dominance. I would display him to stake claim over him, to say that he was _mine_. I would take his body for my own so he would lay in a rest of my own making.” Some part of him realized how much he was saying and told him to shut up, to stop talking before he spoke too much, but he relished it, and Hannibal was listening, and Hannibal was staying.

“His life would have belonged to you as soon as you decided you wanted it,” Hannibal said. “So would his death, and so would be his grave. You would absorb his existence.”

“I would absorb his life, yes, but he would not become me. He was… _lesser_ …than me,” Will said quietly. “He wouldn’t deserve that, even if he’d have wanted it.” He swallowed. “In fact, I feel like what he wanted would have been inconsequential. I would display him to show that to those who would argue the opposite.” He huffed a laugh. “I feel like that makes me a terrible person.”

“Society doesn’t judge based on thought.”

Will scoffed, gestured vaguely at where the boy’s body had been. “Yeah, but it judges when you snap and kill someone and mutilate their body, inflamed brain or not.”

“That may be true. But neither your desires nor your actions make you any more terrible than anyone else,” Hannibal said. “Human morals are constructed by humans. They are not objective; they are not absolute. Your instinct to prove yourself superior to others, to take life or create as you please—or even under specific circumstances, if you justify your actions by saying Garret Jacob Hobbs is a bad man—is not inherently better or worse than the instinct to hunt helpless prey or to help the sick and weary of your own species.”

“To take life or create as I please,” Will mused. He paused, let the words roll around in his mouth, play around his tongue. “Are you _encouraging_ me to play God?”

Hannibal sat back, and he looked amused. “I’m encouraging you to consider your own morals even if they contradict those of society.”

“Some would argue doing that would be playing God.”

“And is God not also something constructed by humans?”

Will smirked. “Well. I suppose that as far as we know, there is no evidence for animals believing in a higher power.”

Hannibal echoed his smile, and for a brief, fleeting moment, Will had the thought that Hannibal was not a good man, and that everything he projected to the world was nothing more than a façade, and that this mystery and contradiction and hidden danger was precisely what had drawn Will to him, this _fascination_ with killers and people who caught them by thinking like them. And then Will remembered that psychiatrists did not exist to manipulate or to persuade, but rather to understand and help understand, and then Will thought that perhaps he didn’t care if Hannibal wasn’t everything Will thought he was because he never understood himself more, or _felt_ like himself more, than he did when he talked to Hannibal Lecter.

“You said just now that you didn’t want Abigail dead,” Hannibal said, and Will flinched, and the pounding in his head that he hadn’t even noticed had gone away was suddenly back again, driving into his skull like a nail, like he was being squeezed between two blocks of stone and bone was about to give way.

“I didn’t,” Will said, gritting his teeth through the sudden pain, closed his eyes on the sudden dizziness.

“But you can’t change the fact that she is,” Hannibal said. He paused. “Would you display her too?”

“No,” Will said immediately. “Not for her to be found, anyway. She’s…she’s different. I would display her to honor her. It would be for myself.” He swallowed, shook his head. “But she shouldn’t have died. She should still be alive right now, and she would be, if it weren’t for me.”

“Will—”

“ _No_ , Hannibal, stop. Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault, because we both know it was. It was my fault that the Ripper looked at her in the first place, because he knew I’d care about her. He knew that if he wanted a reaction it would have to be with her. But even then, I should’ve kept a closer eye on her, I should’ve known what he would do sooner and gotten to her earlier. If I’d just gotten here on time, if I’d just seen what would have happened—”

“You can’t change the past, Will. You can only live in the present and look to the future.”

“And then what, Hannibal? What are my options now? I’ve killed. That’s hope to him. If I reject him, if I stop killing, he’s going to keep going after other people I care about to try and get me to react again, until we catch him, but the FBI has been trying to catch him for years and haven’t even gotten close. How many more people are going to die before we can catch him this time?” Will shook his head, pressed his hands to his eyes, tried to stop the shaking that had started. “And the other option is-is unthinkable. To join him, to _become_ him…”

Will felt Hannibal’s hand on his wrist; gentle, comforting. “You were afraid that the Ripper would go after Abigail because she was the only person you cared about enough. You were afraid that her death would force you to respond,” Hannibal said. “She’s gone now, Will, and you haven’t responded. Killing the boy was the result of your hallucinations alone.”

“But he won’t stop. He’ll go after the next best thing. The next person I care about most,” Will rasped. He pulled his hands away from his face, looked almost pleadingly at Hannibal as if to say _you, it’s you who I care about_.

Hannibal was silent. He held Will’s gaze, and his eyes were open and clear and vulnerable and trusting and Will couldn’t bear it. He tore his eyes away and stood, stumbling across the room and leaning heavily against the wall, breathing hard, heart pounding. His shirt was damp with sweat, even though it was colder now, too cold for the weather to have been the sole reason.

 _The next person I care most about_. Hannibal was the person he’d thought he’d trusted the most, but surely trust and care were different? _Lust_ and care were different. He didn’t care about Hannibal, he didn’t _want_ to care about Hannibal. It wouldn’t be good or safe for anyone.

He heard Hannibal’s footsteps, carrying the man closer to him. He knew when Hannibal was just a few feet behind him, watching him, concerned for him, not touching him.

“I wanted to kill Garret Jacob Hobbs,” Will whispered. “I liked killing the boy. But I didn’t want to be responsible for Abigail’s death.” He huffed a laugh; it was cold and humorless. “If I’m playing God, then God has got quite a case of favoritism.”

“The FBI can try and protect the others,” Hannibal murmured. “Whoever you’re afraid that the Ripper will go after next.”

“The FBI was supposed to be looking after Abigail.”

“Evidently not closely enough,” Hannibal said. “I’m sure Jack wouldn’t object to spending more resources protecting those who are under the most threat by the Ripper until he’s caught, considering he knows the potential fate that would befall them.”

“‘Until he’s caught.’ You seem to have a lot of faith that I’ll catch him,” Will mumbled.

“I have faith that you will figure out who it is,” Hannibal said.

“You put a lot of faith into someone who’s as unstable as I am,” Will said dryly. “And I can’t…I can’t guarantee your safety.” Will was shaking now; Hannibal reached out hesitantly, cautiously, touched Will’s shoulder when Will made no move to pull away.

“I’m not asking for that,” Hannibal murmured. “I care about you, Will. I know the risks. I’ll be right beside you whenever you need me.”

Will laughed. “You shouldn’t,” he said, and he meant it. “The Ripper understands me just as I understand him. He knows when I care, and he’ll use that, but I can’t stop myself from caring. It’s easier and safer if we both just…don’t.” He swallowed, couldn’t help but let Hannibal touch him, couldn’t help but want him.

“The Ripper’s decisions are his own,” Hannibal said. “It’s not your burden.”

“He does all of this _for me_ ,” Will hissed, and he was angry now, because Hannibal understood him so thoroughly on everything else but why couldn’t he understand this? Why could he see that everything the Ripper did was to bring Will to him, to get Will one step closer to becoming what the Ripper wanted him to be? Why could he see that the Ripper would do whatever it took to get Will to do what he wanted?

“You can’t blame yourself for—”

“Stop saying that!” And then suddenly Hannibal was against the wall with Will’s hand fisted in his collar, and Will was angry, and the pounding in his head was getting to be too much to bear. “Stop saying that it’s not my fault. _Everything_ the Ripper does is because of me, or for me, in some way. That’s how he is, Hannibal. It’s obsessive. He can’t get me out of his head. But don’t you get it?” He leaned in closer, crowded Hannibal back harder against the wall, wanted Hannibal to be afraid. “I can’t get him out of my head, either.”

Hannibal swallowed; Will felt the movement of the man’s throat against the back of his hand.

“I can’t get the Ripper out of my head,” Will repeated, and his voice was shaking. “I can’t…I can’t stop thinking about him. And I can’t stop thinking about _you_. The way your hands feel on me, _reverent_ , like I’m the Ripper’s next display. I keep wanting to feel them. But I shouldn’t, and you shouldn’t care about me, because people who get close to me get hurt. People get killed.”

“Will—”

“People get killed, Hannibal!” Will was shouting now, and there was a wine cabinet next to them with the door half ajar, and Will reached in and grabbed a bottle by its neck and smashed it against the wall. Glass shattered, and wine spilled, splattering down the wall like a bloodstain and splashing onto Will’s hand and the left side of Hannibal’s body, exploding outwards in a spray like Cassie Boyle’s blood when Garret Jacob Hobbs had slit her carotid. Will held the broken end of the bottle to Hannibal’s throat and pressed it in until beads of red welled up beneath the points, and Hannibal’s breath stuttered and he lifted his chin and turned his head away in fear or submission or God forbid _arousal_ , and Will held the bottle there with Hannibal’s blood trickling down under it and Hannibal’s immaculate collar and tie and jacket crumpled in Will’s fist and Will’s head hurt to blinding and he _sobbed_ , uncontrollable and desperate and hurt because Abigail was gone because of him and there was no telling who the Ripper would go after next but Will was drawn to him anyway.

Hannibal was silent. His hands hung limp at his sides; he made no move to push Will back, no move to escape. Will could see the pulse in his throat, feel the rise and fall of his chest with every breath.

“Goddamn it, Hannibal, _say_ something,” Will said, and it was almost pleading now, because he couldn’t stand the silence, couldn’t stand being alone with his own thoughts screaming and beating against the inside of his head but knew that it would be even worse for him to try and fill up that terrible silence with words that he didn’t want to say.

But Hannibal was still silent, and Will pressed the glass in harder, felt the razor edges slice past delicate skin and saw the blood run crimson down Hannibal’s front, dripping hot and sticky onto the ground between them, saw Hannibal’s lips turn pale and felt his breaths stutter and catch in his throat as he was drained of life and did nothing to stop Will from doing it. Hannibal was weakening; Will was supporting more and more of the other man’s weight with every passing second, with every fraction of an inch that Will drove the bottle into the other man’s throat. And Will’s head was hurting, and he couldn’t see past spots of black in front of his eyes and what he could see was blurry but he could smell the blood, and his body was moving by itself and he couldn’t stop it and then it wasn’t Hannibal dying in front of him anymore, it was Garret Jacob Hobbs and Will was dissecting his body and putting it up for the Ripper—

The world faded to black. It felt like just a moment, but then Will’s eyes flickered back open and he was standing where he had been before but it was just wine on the floor, and Hannibal was standing in front of him, holding the broken wine bottle and watching Will’s face. The front of his suit was clean; there was no blood. The wall beside them was dry and white.

It took several tries for Will to speak, as if his body were a puppet and he was lending it his voice, working to coordinate between his thoughts and a mouth that wasn’t his own. “What…what happened?”

Hannibal looked at him almost warily. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Will let out a broken, almost-terrified laugh. “Don’t-don’t do that to me, Hannibal. You know I don’t remember what actually happened and what I hallucinated. I need—” He broke off, swallowed, tried to steady his voice. “I need you to tell me what’s real. Please.”

Hannibal hesitated, and then set the broken bottle down on the table and nodded. “You told me that the Ripper is obsessed with you. You said that people get killed when they get close to you. Then you had a seizure.”

Will blinked slowly, looked at the broken wine bottle on the table. He swallowed. “Did I…I didn’t…”

“It fell and, obviously, shattered. I picked up the bigger pieces, but I’d advise you keep your shoes on to avoid getting cut by the smaller ones still on the floor,” Hannibal said with a small smile.

Will swallowed again. “I thought I’d…I thought I’d threatened you with it. Hurt you.” He took a shuddering breath. “I felt like I wanted to.”

There was a long silence. They watched each other as if they were two predators circling, two dogs that wanted the same piece of meat and were sizing each other up before they lunged at each other’s throats, except one was calm and sane and the other mad.

“You’re sick, Will,” Hannibal said finally.

“Um.” Will cleared his throat, looked away. “Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

Hannibal looked amused; a small smile spread itself briefly across his face. “No, Will,” he said. “I mean you’re physically sick. I was going to suggest we return home, where you can rest while I prepare chicken soup and ensure that you get your medication.”

Will opened his mouth to respond, closed it again. His heart thudded in his chest.

There was a drop of red at the base of the wall.

“Will?”

“Don’t lie to me, Hannibal,” Will whispered. “What did I do?”

Hannibal was silent for a while. Finally, he sighed and looked away. “Alright. You broke the bottle,” he said. “It didn’t fall. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like you were getting worse.”

“Am I?” Will looked down at his hands; they were shaking.

“I don’t know.”

Will took several deep, shaky breaths, tried to calm himself. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

Will swallowed. He was still shaking. “What’s happening to me?”

Hannibal watched him for a moment. “I can’t be sure what happened before I arrived. I assume you had a particularly bad episode. Hallucinations, lost time, potential seizures…I don’t know how much you saw. It’s possible that your hallucinations reflected an actual understanding of the events that had taken place prior to your arrival; perhaps the boy had come back to view the body. It’s also possible that he was here entirely by coincidence and did not intend to hurt her at all.”

“But encephalitis…it doesn’t turn people into killers.” Will’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “That isn’t the illness.”

“Disorders of the brain manifest differently in different people,” Hannibal said simply.

Will took a shuddering breath, and then another, and then another. That hadn’t felt like encephalitis, no; the rage he’d felt, the pleasure he’d gained from the kill…it would be easy to attribute it to illness, but he was afraid that it wasn’t, that it was actually something that came from _him_ , a desire clawing its way up from the deep recesses of his soul.

“Will,” Hannibal murmured. “Will, you’re alright.” He reached out to Will’s shoulder, steadying him, stopping the tremors. “You’re tired, and you need to rest and recover. Let’s return home, yes? There’s no use lingering here any longer.”

It took a few tries for Will to speak. “My home or your home?”

“My home is both closer and more likely to be stocked with soup ingredients, don’t you think?” Hannibal asked with a smile. “I can drive to your house and pick up your medication overnight, and we can deal with your car in the morning.” He paused. “We can leave now, if you’re ready.”

“If I’m…yes. I’m ready.” He wasn’t, really, but Hannibal was right; what use was there in staying? The boy was dead, his body gone. Abigail was dead. There was no more life in this house, and the longer he stayed, the longer he felt like the shadows in the floorboards would creep into his memory and turn into nightmare, weave webs of confusion and uncertainty and destabilize the few fragile splinters of sanity that still remained.

Hannibal’s hand slid down to Will’s wrist; he gave it a light squeeze, and then his touch slipped away, and Will wanted it back. He turned and headed to the front door, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that Will was following.

Will did. He stepped in Hannibal’s footsteps, edging carefully around the invisible bloodstain from bodies that weren’t there in the middle of the room, stepping his way around shadows where nonexistent horned and winged figures lurked. It was late now; the air was cold when he stepped outside and he let the door shut behind him, listened to the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel as he followed Hannibal to his car, tried to latch onto what he could see and hear and feel around him to keep himself in the present instead of seeing Abigail rising from the crumbling ground.

Yes, he was sick. It would be foolish to deny it.

Hannibal drove them back. It wasn’t a long drive; no more than an hour or so, and Will was aware of little of it. He sat beside Hannibal in the passenger seat, listening to the classical music drifting softly through the air—Bach, Hannibal said—and he thought about how he and Hannibal and the Ripper were like orchestrations of carbon, echo chambers where the same thoughts and ideas and designs reverberated back and forth for eternity.

He saw Hannibal glance at him out of the corner of his eye; he saw the light fall of rain outside and heard the gentle swish of the windshield wipers, clearing away the tears that wept from the sky. He wondered if Abigail wept as the boy killed her. He wondered why he hadn’t wept over her.

He looked at Hannibal in a brief moment of clarity, reached out a trembling hand. The headlights cast shadows into the distance as the trees swept past, and Hannibal reached back, and shaking fingers met steady ones and stilled into silence. His hand fell limp; he felt Hannibal squeeze gently, and a tingle of warmth crept up through the bones of his wrist up the muscles of his arm into the stiffness of the rest of his body.

The road was calm. Two cars passed them traveling in the opposite direction, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the momentary blinding light as they roared past. Hannibal held his hand, thumb pressing gently into cold skin, grounded him in the present.

“Did he hurt you?” Hannibal asked quietly.

Will couldn’t help but laugh; it sounded weak, distant, frail. “I killed him and you’re asking if he hurt me?”

“He’s dead, you’re not,” Hannibal said simply. “Even if I also cared for him, there’s nothing I can do for him now.”

Will swallowed, felt his heart stutter at the almost casual statement, the casual confession of emotional investment. “No,” he said. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”

Hannibal hummed, rubbed his thumb gently into Will’s hand. Will let out a shaky breath, let himself be absorbed by the touch. It wasn’t entirely the truth. The boy had bruised, and nails had raked furrows in his skin, but that didn’t matter. Bruises and cuts would heal, but Hannibal was right; no one ever recovered from death.

“You can sleep, Will,” Hannibal murmured, after a brief pause. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Will said.

Hannibal glanced at him. “Afraid of what your dreams will bring?”

“Yes,” Will said bluntly.

“Mm. It’s times like these where I wish your imagination weren’t so vivid,” Hannibal said. “Perhaps a calmer and more ordinary mind would give you greater peace, grant you better rest. I feel more at ease knowing you are too.”

Will swallowed, looked away. They were on a highway now; trees lining the road whipped past like hundreds and thousands of ghosts, trapped in ageless bark and doomed to stand guard over weary travelers. He wondered if the Wendigo would have lived in a place like this, flitting between the shadows and dotting the abandoned landscape with corpses. He wondered if in another life, one of those corpses would have been Abigail. He wondered what the Wendigo might have brought him from her body; nails, perhaps? A strand of hair? Her heart, fresh and dripping blood in a jar?

He wondered what her father would have done with her, if he’d been able to kill her. He wondered if Hobbs would have done something else to show that Abigail was beyond divine to him, done something even more perfect than Cassie Boyle.

The trees gave way to sparse houses, gave way to city, faded again to outskirts. Hannibal turned onto a narrow street, pulled into his gravel driveway. His hand gave Will’s a gentle squeeze. “We’re here, Will.”

Will followed Hannibal inside. His head was aching again; Hannibal touched his forehead and cheeks, frowned, led him upstairs. “You’re feverish,” he murmured. “And your clothes are damp. I’ll run hot water for a bath and bring you dry clothes.”

“Hannibal, you don’t have to—”

“You’re ill,” Hannibal said, leading Will to the bathroom and turning on the tap to the bathtub. “I don’t want you getting worse. And I don’t want you getting blood on my sheets,” he added with a good-natured smile.

Will’s lips twitched. “No, I don’t suppose you would. It would be a pain to wash out.”

“Indeed. Though I can wash your clothes for you in the morning before the blood stains set too much. How’s the temperature?”

It took a few moments for Will to realize Hannibal was talking about the water. He dipped a finger in it, nodded once. “’S good,” he mumbled. “Thank you.”

A smile briefly softened Hannibal’s face. “Of course,” he said quietly. He paused. “I’ll bring you clean clothes.”

The bathroom door closed quietly behind him. Will stripped off his clothes, left them in a puddle on the floor, turned off the tap when the bathtub had filled enough and stepped in. The tub was deep; the water came up to his shoulders and was a bit too hot, but the heat of it was calming, relaxing his tense muscles and keeping his mind in the present.

There was a light knock on the door; a moment later, it swung open again.

“Clean clothes,” Hannibal said as he walked in, setting the pile of folded clothes on the counter by the sink. His gaze fell on Will’s arms, where the boy had raked his skin with his nails; his brow furrowed. “You said he didn’t hurt you.”

“He didn’t. It doesn’t hurt,” Will muttered, suddenly very aware of the fact that he was naked. A faint flush colored his cheeks.

Hannibal took a step forward, and then stopped. “May I?”

Will swallowed, nodded. His heart thudded once, twice, three times before Hannibal reached his side, and then Hannibal knelt and slipped his hands into the water. His touch was gentle, fingers light as they probed the wounds. The water had stung, but Hannibal soothed the pain, washing the furrows the boy has left almost tenderly with a small washcloth.

“These should be disinfected and bandaged,” Hannibal said quietly. “I’ll see to it after.” His fingers paused by the bruises the boy had left; there was a flash of anger in his clear gaze before it faded and his eyes searched Will’s face. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Will said, but it was halfhearted and came a beat too late, because as Hannibal had turned to him Will had seen something on his throat: pinpricks and thin lines of dried blood, half-hidden under the collar of the man’s shirt, as if he’d bled and the wounds had very recently scabbed over.

_There was a wine cabinet next to them with the door half ajar._

_“You broke the bottle,” Hannibal said. “It didn’t fall.”_

Will closed his eyes briefly; in the darkness behind his lids he saw himself reaching for a bottle and smashing it against the wall next to Hannibal’s head. He saw himself holding the jagged edge to Hannibal’s throat, pressing in until blood began to flow. He saw himself _enjoying_ it, relishing the power that the position gave him, standing there over Hannibal pressed with his back against the wall, head turned away and eyes closed in complete submission.

Will opened his eyes, let out a sharp breath. He’d asked Hannibal if he’d threatened him, if he’d hurt him, and Hannibal had said no.

Hannibal had _lied_ to him. What he had just seen had been memory, not imagination.

“Will?”

Will looked up at Hannibal, and he knew that if he asked, Hannibal would say that he hadn’t wanted Will to be afraid of himself and his own instability, that he hadn’t wanted to burden Will with the additional knowledge that he’d _actually_ hurt someone instead of just wanting to.

But if he’d lied about this, about even those small pinpricks of blood, what else had he lied about? Had he kept other, bigger things hidden from Will? Did he know more about the Wendigo and what it had brought him than Will did, did he know that Will was closer to the Ripper than he himself believed?

And at what point did well-intentioned protection from certain pieces of knowledge become endangerment? Or did Hannibal _want_ to let Will get closer to the Ripper, let him become so melded with him that it would be too late to separate once he realized what was happening?

Will wasn’t sure he wasn’t already at that point. He’d wanted to hurt Hannibal, after all. He’d almost done it. He’d just killed, and he’d almost killed again. And he wasn’t sure that Hannibal _didn’t_ want Will to get closer to the Ripper. He’d been excited to hear Will talk about the Ripper’s mind and the Ripper’s kills, and he had never expressed concern at Will’s taste for violence; on the other hand, Will might have said that the man was _aroused_ by it.

“Better,” Will repeated, and looked away.

Hannibal didn’t question it. He continued washing him, cleaning the blood from under Will’s nails, around his lips and where it had splashed across his face and neck, sponging the sweat and dirt away from his shoulders and neck and back and hair. Will let him, relaxed under the firm but gentle touch, calmed under the watchful gaze. At some point Hannibal placed the cloth aside and it was his hands against Will’s bare skin, and Will shuddered, but he let his eyes drift shut and leaned into the touch. It was comforting and familiar, a caress just as much as it was functional.

“Back at Abigail’s house, you said you couldn’t stop thinking about me,” Hannibal murmured. “Do you remember?”

Will swallowed; his lips parted on a soft exhale. “Yes.”

He could hear the slight smile in Hannibal’s voice when he spoke. “You said you couldn’t stop thinking about the feeling of my hands on you. Do you remember that too?”

Will shivered; the movement caused the water to lap gently against the sides of the tub, light and laughing like tinkling bells. “Yes.”

Hannibal paused; his hands were low on Will’s belly now, rubbing gentle circles, curving around to his flanks and slipping around his hips, and if he’d looked carefully enough through the soap suds he’d have seen Will half-hard under his touch.

“I think about it too,” Hannibal said finally. His eyes met Will’s and they held each other’s gazes for a long moment. Will’s heart thudded; his breath hitched in his throat. He wondered how Hannibal would react if Will leaned forward and caught his lips with his own, or if Hannibal would resist if Will took his hand and pulled it down, lower, slipping to the heat between his legs.

He looked at Hannibal, _saw_ him, but perception was pointed on both ends and he felt like Hannibal was looking into him too, seeing past skin and muscle and bone into the very essence of him, and accepting him for what he’d seen.

In the end, it was Will who broke away. He cleared his throat, looked down, and Hannibal turned his attention back to Will’s body. His washed around Will’s thighs, around his calves, down to his ankles and his feet, before he stood.

“I’ll leave you to finish up and get dressed,” he said quietly. “You can rest in the guest room you stayed at last time; I’ll prepare and bring you soup. Leave your clothes here; I’ll take care of them.” He paused. “I trust you took your medication this morning?”

His words took a few moments to process, and it was another few moments before Will was able to remember. “N-no,” he mumbled. “I was…Beverly called, told me she’d just seen something on Abigail from a few days ago. I left, then called you.” He swallowed, shook his head. “I must have forgotten them on the counter in my hurry.”

“Mm. I’ll drive you home tomorrow morning, then.” He gave Will a small smile, and then he was gone.

The water was still warm. Will finished washing up, stood and let it drain. The clothes Hannibal had provided him were soft and warm but far, far too elegant; he couldn’t hold back a snort as he put them on.

Still, it was better than wearing clothes covered in blood and sweat. Will made his way to the guest room and over to the bed against the wall, lay down numbly on his back, staring at the simple chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling. The last time he’d been here had been that night after his appointment, when he’d had a seizure and been terrified for Abigail and Hannibal had calmed him, when Hannibal’s hands had been on him and he’d thought of the Ripper, when Will had realized that the Ripper was acting out of love and Hannibal had told him that he could love too.

There was a small clock resting on the corner of the desk now that hadn’t been there before. Will’s gaze drifted to it, watched the seconds pass. The ticking was barely audible over the faint sounds of Hannibal cooking in the kitchen downstairs; the repeated sharp thump of a knife in a cutting board blended into the muffled ticks, a little bit out of time. The second hand went around in one circle, and then another, and then another, and the minutes followed, and the moon outside slipped higher above the horizon. When Will looked back at the clock again a few moments later, the hour hand had moved sixty degrees, and he didn’t remember anything of the past two hours.

Ah. Lost time again.

There was a light knock at the door a moment before it opened; Will’s looked at Hannibal as he entered, carrying a still-steaming bowl, napkin, and spoon on a tray.

“You really did make me soup,” Will mumbled; his voice rasped. He felt like he was waking from a dream.

Hannibal looked amused as he set the tray down on the nightstand and pulled the chair from the desk over to Will’s bedside. “I always keep my promises, Will. I only apologize it took so long, but it’s best when prepared fresh, with fresh ingredients.”

Will sat up, nodded at the soup. “What’s in it?”

“Black silkie chicken, ginger, goji berries, mushrooms, dates, and various other herbs. Stewed with a bit of rice wine. It’s a traditional Chinese recipe and is used to promote healing.”

Will looked at Hannibal. “You know I could have just waited downstairs with you.”

Hannibal smiled. “Yes. Or you could have gotten some rest up here.”

Will snorted. “Well I didn’t get any.”

“No, I wasn’t sure you would.” Hannibal watched him for a long moment. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Stressed. Numb. Sick.” Will picked up the tray; his hands shook slightly, rattling the spoon against the metal, and Hannibal reached out to steady him. Hannibal pulled out the two folding legs on the underside of the tray, positioned it on the bed over Will’s legs. He took a sip of the soup, hot and soothing but still light; he could taste the herbs, and it was vastly different from the last-minute meals he usually put together for himself, but it was good. It tasted homely.

“I brought bandages for your arms,” Hannibal murmured. He took Will’s free hand gently, dabbed disinfectant over the wounds and wrapped them in gauze. His touch was light and practiced; he’d been a surgeon, Will remembered, and wounds left by raking nails would hardly have been anything to him. When the left arm was bandaged, Will paused to let Hannibal bandage the right. It didn’t escape his notice how the other man’s touch lingered a beat longer than strictly necessary, fingers intertwined with Will’s, skin warm and dry.

Will finished the soup, set the tray back down on the nightstand. His headache had faded somewhat but there was still a pervading tiredness that chilled his bones, an aching that was less physical and more something that clenched its fist around his soul.

“You should sleep,” Hannibal murmured. He picked up the tray, stood to leave.

“Hannibal,” Will began, almost without thinking, and then broke off when he realized that he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say. _Stay_ , maybe. _Stay, because I need you more than you think, and more than I care to admit._

“I’ll come back,” Hannibal said, when Will didn’t speak for several moments.

Will swallowed, nodded, let himself settle back down into the bed. He watched Hannibal leave, didn’t realize that he had fixed his gaze on the doorway until Hannibal returned several minutes later. Hannibal dimmed the lights until they were barely more than a faded orange; bright enough to easily see but dark enough that sleep would still come comfortably. He sat down in the chair by the bed, reached out a hand to touch Will’s forehead.

“Mm. A bit better,” he murmured.

“Feeling better, too,” Will mumbled. “But not feeling good.”

“Let’s hope that sleep brings out the good, then,” Hannibal said. “Do you still wish me to stay?”

Will swallowed. “Yes,” he rasped, and despite everything else it wasn’t a lie.

Hannibal inclined his chin. “I’ll stay.”

Will settled back into the bed again, let his head rest back against the pillow and let Hannibal arrange the covers over him. Hannibal stood to flick off the lights; moonlight peeked in through the window, and in the silvery glow that fought its way into the room through the curtains Will could just barely make out Hannibal’s face; the noble arch of his cheekbones, the harsh, straight cut of his jaw, the proud line of his nose. If he thought about it enough, he could even make himself see the faint beat of Hannibal’s pulse in his throat, the puffs of his soft, even breaths. He could make out Hannibal’s entire life contained in front of him, cupped in the palm of his hands.

Garret Jacob Hobbs came to him in his sleep. He was dead, but he was alive, lurching forward towards Will as Will stood frozen, flesh that had torn or rotted off his skin rejoining him as he walked, eyes that had been cold and flat and dead coming to life in a brilliant cunning. And then Hobbs touched him, cold fingers grasping at his throat, and Will tore himself free of whatever had been holding him still, and Will lunged towards him.

Hobbs ran. He darted backwards into the house, but then it was Hannibal’s house and Will knew his way around, knew that he would run to the kitchen where he couldn’t be cornered, the island counter giving him protection and a little bit of time where he could pull out a knife. Will ran after him and he was right, Hobbs had gone into the kitchen, but for a fleeting moment before he ducked under the knife Hobbs threw at him he saw Hannibal instead, the silvery hair mussed with exertion and a deadly light alive in his eyes.

And then it was Hobbs again. It would take time for him to grab another knife, to take aim and throw it; Will ran forward, reckless, lunging, and Hobbs laughed as they crashed to the ground, as alive as he had been when Will had first seen him in the corner of his own home with a gun pointed at his head. Will pinned him down and adrenaline lent him strength and wrestled the knife from Hobbs’s grip, and then Hobbs was terrified, pleading with him not to kill him, screaming that it was an accident and that he hadn’t meant to kill Abigail, and Will recoiled, horrified, as horns erupted from Hobbs’s forehead, winding up and outward, piercing through metal and wood of the cabinets that surrounded them, fixing Hobbs’s head in place and he was screaming and pleading and then he was laughing, the voices melding together and overlapping into a cacophony of noise and Will couldn’t stand it.

He dug his nails into Hobbs’s throat until blood spurted and Hobbs’s laughs turned into gasping gurgles; he brought Hobbs’s wrists to his lips and sank his teeth in, ripping past skin through muscle and tendon and tasting the sweetness of the blood that erupted in his mouth. The horns wound upwards, pricking his skin and then pushing in, and he screamed, and blood ran hot and thick and sticky, and he was going to be held there, trapped as Hobbs was as he lay on the ground bleeding out and ensnared by the growths on his own head. Will pulled back, horns ripping out of his body, and they kept coming.

And then he was on the ground. He was Hannibal looking up at Will, seeing him standing there bloody and mad but so, so sane, hands and lips crimson and wet and shirt riddled with holes where his antlers had pierced through. He saw Will recoil, and then he was Will again, staring down at the Wendigo, and then the Wendigo was Hannibal, their faces morphing together and the curved horns of Garret Jacob Hobbs turning into the Wendigo’s regal antlers, sprouting like branches that reached up to the sky. Hannibal was bleeding, but he was alive, and he was laughing again, a dark angel with spreading wings smiling its beautiful, crooked smile, and Will bent down, ducked down below the antlers growing into webs above him, and drove a knife into Hannibal’s chest.

For a moment, everything stopped. Hannibal stopped laughing, the antlers stopped growing, the blood stopped spurting out onto the ground and froze into crimson crystals hanging in the air. Will looked around for a moment, took in the grandeur of everything around him, the awe of growth and creation and rebirth that he had halted, the rebeginning of it which he sanctioned. And then Hannibal took a gasping, broken breath, and the blood flowed, the antlers tangled, and time began and movement started again.

Will met Hannibal’s eyes, and they were smiling, and he drove the knife down into the center of Hannibal’s chest. The other man made no noise, but Will saw the stunned gasp, and the adrenaline in Will’s veins turned to a fierce rapture and he pulled the knife downward, feeling the clicks and catches of it breaking through bone, and when it had broken through the entirety of Hannibal’s ribcage he pulled it out and tossed it aside, where it skidded several feet in a bloody trail before clanging to a stop against a wall. He slipped his fingers into the weeping wound, dug down through skin and muscle until he felt the split in bone, pulled the two halves of Hannibal’s chest apart and relishing in the breaking of Hannibal’s body.

He felt good. He felt powerful. He felt unstoppable, like he was a young god relishing in the destruction of creation, finding exalting joy in the beginning of his reign. And he wanted to take something; he wanted to claim. He wanted to _own_ the man beneath him so the entire world could see what he did and who they were.

He could see Hannibal’s lungs, filling and collapsing with every breath, bloody and pink and soft and slick. But that wasn’t what he was after; he reached in past them, feeling them slide easily past his fingers, grasped the still-beating heart, pulled it out as far as it could go without breaking the elasticity of the veins and arteries that lent it life.

“Will,” Hannibal rasped, and Will could hear his voice in his mind, in his soul, as if Hannibal were a part of him and he was hearing himself say his own name.

Will sank his teeth into Hannibal’s heart. He heard Hannibal let out a cry; not quite a moan, more than a breath, something in between pain and ecstasy, felt the man arch up off the floor towards him. It was orgasmic.

Blood flowed. It was hot and sticky and tangy with iron, rich and salty and a little bit sweet. It filled his mouth to overflowing, spilling past his lips and dripping down his chin, staining his clothes. It surged out of the wound down Will’s fingers, following the veins of his hand and forearm, and every beat brought more, and Will took Hannibal’s life, and Will absorbed it, and Hannibal became part of him as the body in front of him died, and Will had never felt more powerful.


	6. Chapter 6

MAY

Will woke abruptly. He was shaking, his shirt damp with sweat, the memory of the dream still fresh and vivid behind his eyes. _Blood, hot and sticky and tangy, filling his mouth, sweet and salty on his tongue. A heart between his teeth as Hannibal’s body died and its soul became part of him._

No, he was awake now, and Hannibal—still whole, still alive, still a separate man—was beside him, calling his name.

“Hannibal,” Will gasped.

“I’m here,” Hannibal said, and Will felt his touch on his shoulder; warm, calm, steady. “You’re alright. I’m here.”

“Hannibal,” Will said again, almost frantic, barely hearing him, and he clutched at Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder, followed it up to his wrist and forearm and bicep and shoulder, grasped feverishly at the buttons on the other man’s shirt. They refused to be undone easily by one hand and Will let out a noise of frustration and yanked roughly, not caring that buttons popped and would need mending because he couldn’t think, he was suddenly irrationally afraid that Hannibal’s chest was split open under his clothes and he was spilling blood onto the floor and Hannibal was bleeding out but still lying to him that everything was fine.

He slipped his hand inside then, under the cotton of Hannibal’s shirt to rest directly on Hannibal’s skin, and his fingers searched down the length of Hannibal’s chest and found no wound or scar or heat of fresh blood, and then the rationality of waking caught up with his actions and he stopped, a little bit stunned, realizing the implications of having woken from sleep and immediately having proceeded to rip his psychiatrist’s shirt open to touch his bare chest.

Hannibal sounded slightly amused when he spoke. “How are you feeling?”

Will swallowed, felt heat flood his cheeks, withdrew his hand. “Um. C-could be, um, a bit more lucid,” he muttered. “Sorry.” He glanced down at his own chest, where the shirt Hannibal had provided him was already damp with sweat. “Sorry about that, too.”

“It’s not a problem,” Hannibal said, sounding rather matter-of-fact. “Nightmares?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“Dreams,” Will said. His voice still shook a bit. “I don’t know if I would call them nightmares.” He swallowed. He remembered tearing open Hannibal’s chest, biting into Hannibal’s heart. He remembered how it made him feel, and wondered if the panic he’d felt just now was panic driven by care for Hannibal’s safety, or panic driven by fear of what he was capable of doing, of what he might have already become. He wondered if it was possible for it to be both.

“Hm. Would you care to talk about it?”

A wry smile tugged at Will’s lips. His gasping breaths had slowed now, and the frantic pounding of his heart had faded to something resembling normal. “I think even you would find the subject a bit…disturbing.”

Hannibal’s smile, from what Will could see in the moonlight, was more genuine. “Try me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Will swallowed, fisted his hands in the sheets. “I worry,” he began; his voice scratched in his throat, and he paused to clear it. “I worry that I am changing.”

“Into what the Ripper wants you to be? You’ve expressed this concern before.”

“No,” Will said. Shaky. “I worry that I am turning into the Ripper himself.”

Hannibal was silent for a few moments. “You know you and the Ripper are separate.”

“The bounds between us are blurring,” Will rasped. “I’m on the edge between waking and sleep where I can do… _anything_. I become God of that blurred world. I can do whatever I want. And the things I choose to do…” He trailed off, swallowed, forced himself to speak. “You don’t catch a monster without being able to think like one. Once you start thinking like one, there’s only a matter of time before it becomes you, and you become it. I worry that I am reaching that point.”

“You are not a monster, Will,” Hannibal said quietly. “Neither is the Ripper. Few things are absolute in that way. For all the heroes and villains you could be, you exist somewhere in between.”

“I killed you,” Will said; abruptly, bluntly. It sounded strange to say it aloud. He paused, waited to see Hannibal’s reaction, but there was none, so he continued. “When I dreamed, I killed you. The same way I killed the boy. I was killing Garret Jacob Hobbs, and then I was killing you, and I didn’t stop. I _couldn’t_ stop. You said my name and I heard it but it was…it was different, I don’t know how to…” He trailed off, collected his thoughts, spoke again. “It was like I heard it inside my head, like you were part of me, but you had no power over me, and you didn’t try to stop me. And I didn’t _want_ to stop. I was killing you, and then you were dead, and I…” He trailed off again, took a few deep, shaky breaths. There was a heat between his legs; his blood rushed hot and furious through his veins.

“You can tell me, Will,” Hannibal murmured, and his voice was still calm.

Will searched for his gaze in the darkness. He found it, dark and clear and bright, and he held it, watched Hannibal’s eyes like stars.

“Tell me,” Hannibal said again, and his voice was like a lullaby.

Will swallowed, opened his mouth, let himself give voice to what he was afraid to say aloud, let himself acknowledge openly what he felt.

“I killed the boy, and I liked it. But I didn’t know him, and he’d killed Abigail, so I felt like I could justify that. I wanted to kill Garret Jacob Hobbs, and I knew how I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t know him either, and he deserved to die, so I could justify that too. But I know you. I… _care_ …about you.” Will swallowed again. Hannibal was watching him intently, his face smooth and calm and devoid of worry, and Will spoke again.

“I killed you, and I liked that too.”

Despite everything, Hannibal stayed with him that night. Will reached out for him almost pleadingly, expecting Hannibal to pull away, but Hannibal returned the touch, let Will ground himself against his skin.

“Stay,” Will rasped.

“I will,” Hannibal said.

“No,” Will said, and his touch was a bit more insistent now. “Stay _here_. Please.”

So Hannibal slipped under the covers beside him, and Will curled into Hannibal’s body, and Hannibal’s hands calmed his shaking. Will buried his face in the heat of Hannibal’s neck, breathed in the sweet scent like sandalwood and citrus, felt the light beat of a pulse against lips barely brushing Hannibal’s skin.

“You’re alright, Will,” Hannibal murmured. His arms slipped around Will’s shoulders and held him close as he shivered; the fever was back again, as was the nausea he’d felt at Abigail’s house before he’d killed the boy, and Hannibal’s hands were on him to hold him steady.

“I feel…unstable,” Will whispered. “Out of control. Like my body isn’t my own and like my thoughts belong to someone else.”

“Like you’re dissociating?” Hannibal asked. His voice was quiet, calm, soothing.

Will swallowed, felt a shudder run along the length of his body. “I…maybe. I don’t know.”

“Hm.” Hannibal was running his hand lightly up and down Will’s spine now. “What do you think would be most helpful for you right now?”

Will shivered, tucked his head down into the junction between Hannibal’s neck and shoulder. “Just…just stay with me,” he said quietly. “Stop being a psychiatrist and just stay.”

Hannibal hummed; Will felt the other man’s grip tighten around him briefly. “Anything, Will.”

Will let out a shaky breath, relaxed into Hannibal’s warmth. He could feel Hannibal’s pulse in his neck, feel the deep, even movements of Hannibal’s breathing against him. He reached out hesitantly, lifting his arms away from where they were pressed against his chest and slipping one over Hannibal’s side. Hannibal turned towards him as he moved and Will’s hand came to rest on his upper back between his shoulder blades, and Will’s lips were in the hollow of Hannibal’s throat.

Hannibal exhaled; Will felt the slight shake in his breath that he hadn’t let reach his voice. He could feel Hannibal’s heartbeat where their chests were pressed together and it was fast, steady and strong but nervous. Beating like a young boy’s heart as he held his lover in his arms for the first time.

Lover. Will wondered distantly if he liked that word. He wondered how it would feel if that word were to be used to describe him, to describe what he was to Hannibal and what Hannibal was to him.

He decided that perhaps it wouldn’t be that bad.

He angled his hips, shifted his leg to edge his knee in between Hannibal’s thighs and tangle their legs together. It wasn’t meant to be sexual, not right now; he knew that, and he knew Hannibal knew that. But Hannibal was his anchor tonight and he wanted to be close, pressed so tightly to Hannibal’s body that nothing could get in between, not the Wendigo, not the dead boy, not even the paper-thin slivers of nightmare that tried to tear his sanity apart.

Hannibal let him, as Will knew he would. He pulled Will closer, fingers pressing a little tighter into his back, and as Will’s shaking breaths calmed and he slipped into sleep, Hannibal stayed there to hold him.

He dreamt again. He killed the boy over and over, and sometimes the boy was Hannibal, sometimes the boy was the Wendigo, sometimes the boy was Abigail, but every time he woke with gasping breaths and his heart racing so fast it felt like it would burst out of his chest there was Hannibal beside him, pushing the sweat-soaked hair back from his face, rubbing soothing circles into the knots in Will’s shoulders and back, stilling his trembling hands, and when the sun finally broke over the horizon at dawn, Hannibal was still there beside him.

“Good morning,” Hannibal murmured, when it became apparent that Will was awake. “How are you feeling?”

Will didn’t open his eyes. “Like shit, but less shit than yesterday,” he mumbled. He swallowed. “Sorry about the rough night.”

“Not at all,” Hannibal said. “I only wish you could have slept more peacefully.”

“It was better than if you hadn’t been here,” Will said, and then broke off abruptly. They were still tangled together, though Will had withdrawn to hug his arms to his chest again sometime in the night, and Hannibal’s arms were still around him, and Will’s knee was still in between Hannibal’s thighs.

“I’m glad to have been of some help,” Hannibal said simply.

Will swallowed, ignored the sudden thudding of his heart, reached out hesitantly. Hannibal’s breathing was calm and even and didn’t falter when he placed his hand on the other man’s side; Will swallowed again, splayed his fingers, felt them sink gently into the softness between Hannibal’s ribs.

Rise, and fall. Strong, steady. Hannibal’s breaths like a slow metronome.

His hand slipped down to the gentle curve of Hannibal’s waist, the jut of his hip and the lean musculature of his lower back. Hannibal arched against him slightly with a sharp breath as Will touched him there, a note of tension wiring through the rest of his body.

Ah. Sensitive, then.

Will lingered there for a few moments with a faint smile, taking in the new slight rasp in Hannibal’s quickened breathing, and then moved his hand up to Hannibal’s shoulders, swept around to his chest to rest briefly over the pound of his heart. His fingers slipped down to Hannibal’s belly, spreading until his palm lay flat against the other man’s body, and he paused, feeling the gentle movement with every breath, wondering if he had the courage to move his hand lower.

Will wanted to touch more. He wanted to peel back the thin layer of Hannibal’s nightshirt and feel the other man’s bare skin against his palm; Hannibal had felt him before, after all, and it seemed only fair to return the favor. He was safe under the sun now, its heat chasing away the frost of nightmares, and he wanted to be a lover in the soft glow of morning, in the brilliant light of a new day muted by white curtains and frosted glass. He wanted to feel and be felt, to revel in the wonder of being alive and feel something, anything at all, to dull the ache that Abigail’s absence had left and temper the sharp anger he’d felt when he’d wrung the life from the boy’s throat.

Abigail and the boy were gone, and Hannibal was here, but Will felt somewhere in between. He’d existed in grey since he’d killed the boy, and he wanted Hannibal to keep him here so he wouldn’t slip away as easily as Abigail had. He wanted Hannibal to keep his mind in the world of sanity and the living so that maybe, somehow, someday, the bit of Abigail’s life that he kept safe in his mind could use him as a lifeline and pull itself back too.

He closed his eyes briefly, let a soft breath escape his lips. He knew it was impossible. Maybe in another world, she would come back, but here, the only place for Abigail that remained was in memory.

His eyes opened again, slipped past Hannibal, looked above the curve of his shoulder to the clock on the desk.

He blinked. “It’s almost ten,” he said. His voice was a rasp.

A soft smile pulled at Hannibal’s lips. “Yes.”

Will’s cheeks reddened with a light flush. “We should, um, we should probably get up.”

“That would probably be a good idea,” Hannibal agreed; there was no heat to his voice. “Will you be alright if I head downstairs to make breakfast?”

Will swallowed, nodded as he disentangled himself from Hannibal. “Yeah.”

Hannibal smile softly. “Good. It should be ready within half an hour.” He stood, paused as he reached the doorway. “If you wish to change, I put your clothes through the wash cycle last night after you’d fallen asleep; they should be dry by now. If not, you’re welcome to borrow another pair of mine.”

“Thanks,” Will mumbled.

Another smile. “Of course, Will.”

Breakfast was, indeed, ready half an hour later, and Will had changed into his clothes which he had found cleaned and dried in Hannibal’s laundry room. He wandered into the kitchen, where Hannibal, already dressed, was finishing plating the food on two trays; rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and several smaller vegetable dishes.

Hannibal looked up as he walked in. “Perfect timing,” he said brightly. “If you could bring the plates to the table, I’ll put the pots in the sink to soak and wash after the meal.”

Will took the trays, put them on the table where napkins and utensils had already been set out, and Hannibal joined him at the table a few moments later.

“A traditional Japanese breakfast,” Hannibal said as they sat. “Rice and miso soup, of course, then yakizakana, umeboshi, ajitsuke nori, natto, and kobachi.” He pointed to the grilled salmon, pickled plum, seaweed, soybean, and salad in turn.

Will raised an eyebrow. “Where did you learn about Japanese breakfasts?”

“My childhood,” Hannibal said. “My aunt and I cooked together frequently.” He paused. “I considered a protein scramble but thought it might be too heavy for you if your resurgence of encephalitis is accompanied by nausea. Is it?”

Will took a sip of soup. “Yes. But this is perfect, thank you.” The food was delicious as always, and indeed light enough for him to get down around the lingering nausea, though he was relatively inexperienced with using chopsticks and they felt a bit awkward.

“My pleasure,” Hannibal said with a smile. There were a few beats of silence while they ate, and then he spoke again, almost casually. “Jack called while you were still upstairs. He’s seen the article. He wants to see you, but I told him I’d have to see how you were doing and if you were in a fit state to drive. He asked me if you had gone to see Abigail.”

Will paused, sudden tension forming a knot in his gut. “What did you tell him?”

“Fractions of truths,” Hannibal said. “I told him you had indeed gone to see her, and that I had followed you once you called me and told me the situation. I told him that as I arrived, I saw Abigail and her mother already dead, and I saw you killing a boy out of self-defense when he attacked you. His chest was split open from a shovel you had used, taken from him when he ran at you with it. I told him it seemed unintentional.”

Will frowned, set down his chopsticks. “And he _believed_ that?”

“Yes—or at least, chose to ignore anything that told him otherwise, in favor of keeping his prized possession out in the field,” Hannibal said wryly. “I told him the boy was likely related to one of the Shrike’s victims. I also told him the body had been disposed of.”

“By you or by me?”

“By us both,” Hannibal said. He paused. “Your car is still in their driveway. We can go there together after breakfast for you to pick it up.”

Will swallowed, looked away, clenched his jaw. “It’s a crime scene,” he muttered. “I killed someone there. They should be taking evidence. They should be taking _me_.”

“Something tells me Jack will be keeping this among the three of us,” Hannibal said with a small smile. “You’re valuable to him, after all; no one can replicate what you do.”

“Except you, maybe,” Will said wryly. “You seem to understand _me_ well enough, after all.”

Hannibal chuckled, took a bite of fish. “Perhaps. Finish your breakfast.”

Hannibal drove them both back to Abigail’s house after they’d finished eating, from where Will drove back home in his own car. He still felt exhausted, but Jack had asked to see him, and he was still fit enough to drive the hour and a half round trip to the office.

“Will,” Jack said as Will walked in numbly.

“Jack,” Will greeted.

Jack had been talking to Price and Zeller; he excused himself and walked over to Will. “Are you alright, Will?” he asked quietly.

“I will be,” Will answered, and he sounded surer than he felt.

Jack watched him for several moments; Will felt his sharp gaze like a knife, cutting through the defenses he and Hannibal had erected, seeing him for who he truly was and what he had truly done. But then Jack nodded. “Do you know who it was?”

“Not for sure,” Will said. “I figured it was Cassie Boyle’s brother.”

“You do realize this is exactly what the Ripper wanted, right?”

Will set his jaw, refused to meet Jack’s gaze. “Killing the boy? Yes, I know that’s what he wanted. But you couldn’t expect me to just let her be, could you? As soon as you saw that article, you had to have known that she would be in danger. I called; she didn’t answer. I was right to fear the worst.”

“I know.” Jack sighed; Will could see the frustration in his face. “I’m sorry about it. We should’ve kept a closer eye on her, given that she hadn’t changed her name or anything—”

“It was the Ripper,” Will interrupted. “It wasn’t your fault. He would’ve found a way around it no matter how closely you were watching her; who would’ve thought to watch a tabloid journalist?”

Jack shook his head. “How the fuck did Freddie Lounds find out about her anyway?”

“That’s what I mean to ask her,” Will said darkly. It seemed fairly obvious that the Ripper would have been the one to tip her off, but the question was how he’d done it. With luck, he might have left something behind, something that could lead the FBI to him.

He remembered several days later that he’d told Beverly everything was fine with Abigail, a statement that had turned out to be extraordinarily false. He dialed her number somewhat guiltily; she picked up after the second ring.

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” she said sharply. “You told me everything was fine, but Jack told me that Abigail is dead—that she’s _been_ dead. What happened?”

Will winced. “I, um. I had an episode.”

“An episode?” Beverly sounded confused, and then Will heard her soft intake of breath. “You mean your encephalitis.”

“Yes.”

Beverly sounded incredulous. “I thought you got meds for that. I thought it was getting better.”

“Me too. Apparently we were both wrong.”

“It’s never been this bad though, right? Even before. You literally hallucinated an entire conversation, and not just over the phone, either; you told me you saw her. You thought she was standing right in front of you, and you said you talked to her.” A pause. “This is bad, Will. You’ve been under stress before but your encephalitis has never been like this.”

“Oh, I know, believe me.” Will clenched his jaw.

“So, what—you just, like, left right after? After you saw her and thought she was fine?”

Will felt a jolt run through his body; she didn’t know about the boy. Jack hadn’t told the team. But was it genuine concern over how they might see him, or was it concern over who else might find out? Was he keeping it under wraps just so he could keep his prized bloodhound at his side, without the judges realizing that there was something deeply wrong with its internal conformation? An aggression that was tempered for the time being but that could lash out any moment?

“Will?”

Will cleared his throat, turned his attention back to the present. “Yeah. Yeah, must have. I don’t know, it was all a bit of a blur.”

He could hear Beverly’s frown in her voice. “You _are_ talking to Jack and Hannibal about this though, right? You’re getting this checked out?”

“Hannibal knows.”

“And Jack?”

Will winced again. “Not yet.”

“You should tell Jack too, Will. Get medical leave, if it’s that bad.” She paused. “I’m just worried about you, alright? I know firsthand that things in the field can get to you. That things stay with you, even when you’re off the clock. And I’m the one with the healthy brain.” She huffed a laugh, but when she spoke again, she was serious. “I’m sorry about Abigail,” she said. “Honestly. I feel like shit. It’s a terrible thing what happened to her, and I really hope we can find out what happened and give her justice. I know that you really cared about her.”

“Care doesn’t do anything when she’s dead,” Will said bluntly, and then broke off, swallowed, took a breath. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. I…I appreciate it.”

“I know,” Beverly said, but her voice was soft. There was a pause. “I’ve got to get back to work now, got some analysis at the lab.”

Will frowned. “Analysis for what? There haven’t been any new cases.”

There were a few moments of silence, and then Beverly said quietly, “For Abigail.”

Ah. Will swallowed, breathed through the jolt that went through his heart, the sudden tightening of his chest. “Jack brought the bodies back then?”

Beverly was silent for a few moments.

“What is it?” Will demanded.

Another few moments of silence, and then Beverly sighed. “We went two days ago,” she said. “I didn’t tell anyone the day you went since you asked me not to, but Jack saw the article the next morning anyway. He said he called Hannibal, who told him that he’d gone after you to Abigail’s house and seen her and her mother already dead.”

Jack really hadn’t told anyone about the boy, then, Will thought. For all anyone else knew, Will had gone to check on Abigail and found that he had come too late.

“We found her mother’s body when we went,” Beverly continued. “Been dead about a week. Wounds from a large sharp object; maybe a shovel.” She paused. “We didn’t find Abigail’s.”

Will’s breath left him in a soft huff. “She-she might be—”

“I don’t think so,” Beverly said quietly. “I’m sorry, Will. Hannibal said he saw her body when he went with you; the most likely scenario is that the killer came back and moved it after you left and before we went. We found an ear, and blood confirmed to be hers; that was it.”

Will swallowed. “What else?”

“We brought back everything we could. There’s um, we found some evidence on the remains. Traces of DNA from a guy named Nicholas Boyle.”

“Cassie Boyle’s brother,” Will said.

“Yeah. We just ran another test to confirm; those are the results that should be coming out now. It seems pretty likely that he was the one who went after them, but we didn’t find his body either.”

Hannibal had disposed of it, Will remembered.

“You think he’s still alive?” Beverly asked.

“He might be; you said yourself, the killer probably came back to move the body. Assuming he’s not a psychopath, he’s going to be dealing with enormous amounts of guilt, and he might even turn himself in if it gets too overwhelming. Or he’ll kill himself.”

“Mm. Let’s hope it’s the first one.”

“Jack didn’t…he didn’t say anything about my hallucination?”

“No. He told us what Hannibal told him; he’d followed you to the house where he found you already there, and them already dead.” She paused; Will could almost see her frown. “Either Hannibal told him the truth and Jack is lying to keep your condition hidden from the rest of the team—which I respect, by the way, it’s your own medical condition—or Hannibal was the one lying through omission when he told Jack what had happened.”

Will swallowed. They were both true, Hannibal and Jack each weaving their own webs of lies and secrets to serve their purposes for him; Jack to protect him from the rest of the FBI, Hannibal to protect him from Jack. “You are the only one who knows I hallucinated,” he said to Beverly. “I’d…I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

There was his own lie. But Beverly didn’t need to know that.

“Want me keeping secrets from Jack now, huh?” Beverly asked, but Will could hear the smile in her voice. “Okay. You promise me that I can trust you to keep him in the loop as you see fit, and I won’t say a word. Deal?”

“Yeah,” Will said. “Thanks.”

Beverly paused. “Jack told me you’re talking to Freddie Lounds about the article.”

“Yeah, I’m heading to the office right after this call.”

“Good luck; hope you find something useful. And try not to beat the shit out of her, yeah?” Beverly said, only half-joking.

“We’ll see,” Will said grimly, and hung up.

The meeting was scheduled in an hour in one of HQ’s meeting rooms; Jack would be there too. They were both already there when Will arrived, even though Will arrived fifteen minutes early, and Freddie was holding a cup of coffee.

“Been a while since we’ve all last met, hasn’t it?” Freddie said with a smile as he sat down. “The last time was…ooh, must have been back when the FBI asked for my help with the Tooth Fairy article.” She caught Jack’s eye, chuckled. “My apologies. The Great Red Dragon.”

“A while since _we’ve_ met, certainly not a while since you’ve met our cases,” Will said acidly. This was the woman who was partially responsible for Abigail’s death, after all. Had it not been for her article, perhaps Nick Boyle wouldn’t have even known she existed.

“No,” Freddie agreed, still smiling, taking no note of his tone. “I suppose not. You’re doing better with the eye contact, though, Hannibal Lecter helping you out? Or was it the time you spent taking a break from the field?” She paused, went on when Will didn’t respond. “Well, you wanted to see me, here I am. I’m guessing it’s not because you’ve got a juicy story to tell me.”

“We want to ask you some questions about your most recent article,” Jack said.

“The Shrike’s daughter,” Freddie said.

“Yes.”

“I’m usually the one trying to get information from others,” Freddie said. “Not the other way around.”

“You certainly got information from the Ripper,” Will muttered.

Freddie raised an eyebrow, took a sip of her coffee. “Is that who it was? I was wondering.”

Jack leaned forward, folded his hands over the table. “You got information about Abigail Hobbs from a source we believe is the Chesapeake Ripper, yes. We want to know exactly _what_ he told you, and exactly _how_ he told you. Anonymous tip? Threats at gunpoint? Messenger?”

Freddie mirrored Jack’s movement. “What do I get in return? Oh, come now, you know information doesn’t come cheap.”

“You get to feel a little bit redeemed for being responsible for Abigail Hobbs’s death,” Will said bluntly.

“And you get my assurance that we won’t charge you with obstruction of justice,” Jack added, with a pointed look at Will. “On the contrary, you’ll be helping us catch the Chesapeake Ripper, after which we can talk about your rights to publish a confirmed story about this case.”

Freddie was silent for a few moments. “He killed her?” she asked finally.

“Not the Ripper,” Will said. “But someone who read your article. Someone who didn’t know who or where Abigail was until you exposed her. Someone who was probably related to one of the Shrike’s victims, and took out his anger on the Shrike’s daughter.”

“She wasn’t innocent,” Freddie said. “You know that, right?”

“And you think that justifies her murder?”

“You could ask the same thing to the courts who give out death sentences.”

Will hissed. “She was _sixteen_ , Freddie. A child. She wasn’t her father.”

“Let’s get back to the point,” Jack said. “I just want to know everything you know about the person who told you who she was and where to find her.”

Freddie watched them for a long moment, gaze flickering back and forth between Will and Jack. Finally, she sighed. “I got a phone call. Distorted voice, hidden number. He told me that the Minnesota Shrike had a daughter, and that her name was Abigail Hobbs, and that she was living with her mother near Woodmark, Maryland. He told me to write the article. He said it didn’t matter what story I turned it into, as long as it had her name and location. I wasn’t going to believe him, of course, he had no proof to back himself up and gave me no incentive to write it, until he said that he could see me still holding my eyeliner pencil through my apartment window.”

“He was watching you,” Will said.

“Yes. I asked him what he wanted to achieve with the article, but he didn’t say anything.” She paused. “I guess we know now.”

Abigail was dead, and Will had killed for the first time. It was what the Ripper had wanted.

“Has he contacted you since?” Jack asked.

Freddie shook her head. “Nothing. No suspicious emails, letters, calls, packages, nothing. For all I know, he just needed me to write that article so that someone would go after Abigail.” She looked at Will. “What I don’t understand is why he would even want to do that. What does he have against Abigail Hobbs that he couldn’t deal with personally?” She leaned forward. “Unless this isn’t about Abigail,” she said. “Maybe he was doing this to get someone’s attention.”

Will laughed. “What, by getting someone else to do his job for him?”

Freddie shrugged, still looking at him. “Shows off his ability to manipulate the situation to his favor, doesn’t it? Some would find that interesting. Attractive, even.” She paused. “Psychopaths are more likely than the general population to find other psychopaths attractive, after all. I don’t know, maybe it has to do with a kind of understanding that goes on between them which the rest of the world isn’t privy to.”

“Whoever he’s trying to impress probably wouldn’t be as impressed if they find out that he had to resort to threats. It’s not as awe-inspiring when he needs to use violence to get you to do what he wanted,” Will said lightly.

Freddie smiled at him. “Mm. No, I suppose not. Maybe he should have thought of that.”

“You said something earlier that caught my attention,” Jack broke in, and no one commented on the change of subject. “You said Abigail wasn’t innocent. What do you mean?”

Freddie raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so you _don’t_ know? She knew about her father’s murders. She knew exactly what was going on. She might have even helped him catch the girls he killed.”

“Speculation,” Jack said. “Nothing confirmed.”

“The Ripper confirmed it,” Freddie said. “Sorry, did I not mention that before? He told me when he called, though given that it didn’t relate to Abigail’s name and location, I didn’t have to write about it. He also told me you would know.”

“Me specifically, or the FBI?” Jack asked.

“He said, ‘ask Jack.’ Implying that either you already knew, or you knew someone who did.” There was a beat of silence, during which she looked hard at them. “Given that you haven’t been able to confirm anything, maybe your team isn’t telling you everything they know. Maybe they all need a talk on discipline and transparency. We can’t be having secrets in law enforcement, can we?”

“Stay in your lane, Freddie,” Will warned.

Freddie tilted her head; her eyes were cold. “Or what? You’ll send someone to arrest me? Or maybe _you_ have something to hide, Will Graham.”

“Let’s all calm down,” Jack said. “No one is threatening anyone here. We asked for anything you had on the Ripper’s communication with you; that’s all. If there’s nothing more you can give us, I think we’re done here.”

Freddie smiled at him, stood. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I believe that’s all.”

Jack held her gaze for a long moment, and then he nodded and stood, shaking her offered hand. “I’ll be in touch when we catch him.”

“Yes, thank you,” Freddie said, still smiling. She held out her hand to Will; he didn’t take it, and after a moment she dropped it, unbothered. “I hope it will be soon.”

“I knew,” Will said bluntly, when Freddie had left. “I knew about Abigail.”

“Since when?”

“Since before she left to live with her mother. She told me when she was still at the facility.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “And somehow you thought it was a good idea to keep this from me?”

Will’s jaw tightened. “I knew you’d try and charge her for being an accomplice. She didn’t deserve that; she was sixteen, and her father would have killed her if she didn’t do it. You know that. _She_ knew that. She was just trying to survive.”

“There’s a reason there’s a difference between different murder charges,” Jack said. He frowned. “Are you the only one she told?”

Will hesitated, didn’t meet Jack’s eyes. “She might have told Alana, I don’t know. She didn’t tell me that she told anyone else. I talked to Hannibal about it, but he…I don’t think he’d have said anything either. The Ripper knew who the Shrike was, though; if he was able to figure that out, if he knew how the Shrike killed, maybe it didn’t matter who Abigail told or who I told, because the Ripper already knew anyway.”

Jack’s frown deepened. “He has an uncanny knack for knowing things that he shouldn’t.”

“Or maybe we’re just behind on the game,” Will said wryly. “Even Freddie said it; manipulation is part of it. Maybe that’s his true courtship; not just the kills themselves, but the fact that he’s got us walking in circles, finding things out only when he wants us to, keeping us hidden in the dark otherwise. Showing off not just by showing that he can manipulate one man to kill one girl, but the entirety of the FBI itself. We are his pawns, just like the Shrike was.”

“And he’s hoping that your ability to understand him means that you’re compatible with him, that you think like him,” Jack said. “He’s hoping you’ll appreciate it. As for me, I’m hoping that you’re able to recognize and resist his manipulation. Are you?”

“Yes,” Will said.

Jack watched him. “Hannibal told me you killed the boy in self-defense. I haven’t told the rest of the team about it.” He paused. “It _was_ self-defense, wasn’t it? He attacked you unprovoked?”

“Don’t mistake me for one of the killers you’re trying to catch just because I can think like them, Jack.”

“Sometimes the boundaries between fiction and reality are difficult to see,” Jack said. “Even harder to distinguish is the border between belief and truth. I just need to trust that you can tell the difference, and that the personas you assume on the case don’t bleed through to you.”

Will held his gaze. “I was angry,” he said evenly. “I won’t deny that. I won’t deny that I wanted justice for the man who killed Abigail. But if you want to find the Ripper, you’ll need to trust me, too.”

He almost killed again two weeks later. The team had gone to South Carolina to catch a fledgling serial killer and she’d made a run for it right before they’d gotten to her apartment; Will had gotten to her first and held her at gunpoint, his fingers shaking and his breath coming in pants, his heart racing and his blood hot and loud in his ears. For a moment, she looked like Abigail, her bright blue eyes wide and scared as long dark hair fell on either side of her face, but Will knew she was the killer and not Abigail Hobbs, and Jack and the rest of the team were there. Jack was telling him to lower his gun, that it was over, and his eyes had locked on the bullet hole he’d put in the wall next to the killer’s head.

He remembered putting that there. He remembered aiming for brick instead of for flesh.

He’d made the decision not to kill her.

“If Jack wasn’t there, would you have wanted to kill her?” Hannibal asked that night, after she’d been brought into custody and they’d all returned to the hotel.

“Yes,” Will said, and it was almost defiant.

“But it didn’t feel like Nicholas Boyle,” Hannibal said. They were seated across from each other in Hannibal’s room, now, lit by a single lamp on the desk; it cast strange shadows over the man’s face, brought out the sharp angles of his skull, the elegant cut of his nose and cheekbones and jaw. He’d poured them each a glass of white wine; Hannibal’s was set on the table beside him, while Will held his.

“I killed Nick Boyle out of anger,” Will said, wondering distantly how Hannibal managed to procure a bottle of high-quality wine every hotel room they went. “I wanted to kill Sofia Langley out of curiosity. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t shoot her when she was running. If I’d hit her, I don’t think I’d have been able to stop, and there are fifteen bullets in my gun.”

“It would have made quite a mess,” Hannibal said with a small smile.

“Quite a mess, indeed; it would have been terrible to have to explain that to Jack.”

Hannibal tilted his head; his eyes glinted. “Would you have displayed her?”

Will hesitated, considered the question. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe. She looked a bit like Abigail, only older; she might have made a nice metaphor. At the very least, she would have done nicely to let the Ripper know how I feel about his responsibility for Abigail’s death. I’d have made her into something beautiful, I think, but with the Ripper’s blue butterfly wings on her eyes and lips. He’d know what I was saying; that she should have lived, but her potential was silenced because of him. He’d see the accusation.” He paused. “But it doesn’t make sense for me to think about what can’t happen. Jack and the rest of the team were there; the dead body I’d have shaped is not actually dead.”

Hannibal watched Will for a long moment. “You seem calm,” he said, “even though we’re discussing a woman’s hypothetical death and mutilation.”

“I guess the Ripper is finally getting to me,” Will said lightly.

A small smile played at Hannibal’s lips. “You have a very different reaction to this from when you killed Nicholas Boyle, not too long ago,” he said. “You were…rather troubled then.”

“I was sick,” Will said. “I’m not sick now.”

“I take it this means you didn’t have hallucinations this time?”

“No,” Will said. He huffed a laugh. “My brain was functioning normally for once. I wasn’t under the Ripper’s control; I didn’t see the Wendigo. I thought about them, of course, as I’m thinking of them now, but I know who I am. I know I am my own person.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Hannibal said. “So often in the past you have expressed worries of losing yourself to the minds of the killers whose identities you temporarily assume. But I must confess I’m curious as to why this has changed so drastically; does the fact that your victim is a serial killer affect the way you see her hypothetical murder and display?”

“Would her guilt make my killing more justifiable, you mean,” Will said.

“Yes.”

Will laughed. “I don’t know. Probably. It feels less wrong than it would have felt to kill Abigail.”

“And less wrong than it felt to kill Nicholas Boyle.”

“Yes. That, in turn, I suppose is what makes it easier to find myself in the midst of the chaos that is trying to control me, and once I’ve found myself, it’s harder to lose it again.” Will swallowed, stood, walked to the window and looked out at the streetlights flickering below. “Part of me is almost dismayed to find that I’m dealing with this with more control,” he said with a smile. “I rather enjoyed the meals you cooked for me last time.”

Hannibal sounded amused when he spoke. “I would be happy to cook for you anytime, Will, you need only ask.”

Will glanced at him. “And what about the nightmares?” he asked, half-joking. “Would you also be happy to have me spend the night with you again, too?”

“Of course,” Hannibal said.

Will swallowed; he hadn’t quite expected that answer. He looked away, back out the window, took a drink from the glass in his hand.

“The fact that you brought this up implies that something is troubling you,” Hannibal said.

Will couldn’t meet his gaze. “I…I’ve still been dreaming about Abigail,” he said quietly. “Not quite as frequently, maybe not as intensely, but the subject of the dreams is the same as before…before she died. Seeing her hurt. Thinking I’m the one hurting her.”

“I assume these nightmares are interfering with your quality of sleep,” Hannibal said.

“I wake up,” Will said. “Several times a night, sometimes. It takes a while to get back to sleep, if at all, and I never feel rested in the morning.” He glanced at Hannibal briefly, looked away again. “But it’s not like before. I can manage.”

Hannibal looked at him for a few moments, and then he said, “Nevertheless, would it help if I stayed with you?”

Will swallowed again; his knuckles were white on the wine glass.

“I understand we head back tomorrow,” Hannibal said when Will didn’t answer. “And perhaps a daily arrangement then will be less feasible, given the distance between our houses. But as someone who cares about you, I want to offer my assistance now, when I can.”

“I…” Will’s voice caught in his throat, and he paused to clear it. “I’d like that, I think,” he said quietly, and there was a slight flush that colored his cheeks.

“Then I’ll stay tonight,” Hannibal said.

They agreed on Will’s room. There was a gentle knock on his door several minutes after he’d changed and brushed his teeth; he opened it to find Hannibal standing outside. They settled into bed together, Will shifting in close to Hannibal almost instinctively, and he felt the other man’s arms wrap around him.

Will let out a shuddering breath. Hannibal was warm, his heart a steady beat. He could feel the rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest with every breath.

“You’re tense,” Hannibal murmured.

Will huffed a laugh. “Am I?”

“Your entire body is pressed against me, I can feel it,” Hannibal said, and Will could hear the amused smile in his voice.

“Ah.” Will swallowed, made an effort to relax.

“Have you seen the Wendigo recently?” Hannibal asked after several moments of silence.

“Occasionally,” Will said. “I visit it in the woods when I want to. I haven’t hallucinated it out of context.” He chuckled. “It’s a weird thing to say, you know. I know that what I see in the woods is a hallucination, but I don’t really consider it one when I see it there. It’s too…consistent. It seems too real.”

“As if that clearing where you meet it is a portal to another world, in which anything is possible, including the Wendigo, but once you step back out, no such thing exists.”

“You read my mind,” Will murmured.

“My job as a psychiatrist is to understand. My job as a friend is much the same,” Hannibal said.

Will flushed, ducked his head down. The movement brought his nose down to the hollow of Hannibal’s throat; Hannibal hummed, rested his cheek on the top of Will’s head, tightened his arms around Will briefly.

“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal said, with his lips pressed in Will’s hair. “Do you still feel the same about the Ripper now?”

Will paused. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I can’t decide what to feel about him. It’s…complex. There’s anger, of course, but there’s still something that pulls me to him. They’re conflicting in my mind, and I can’t seem to reconcile the two.” He swallowed, brought his left hand up to drape it across Hannibal’s waist; his right hand was between them, stroking Hannibal’s chest absentmindedly. “It’s not like a frustrated parent who can be angry but still know they love their child. It’s a similar principle, I suppose, if you’re just looking at incongruent emotion, but it feels more… _violent_ …than that. I want to _be_ more violent than that.” He paused. “For all I care, the Ripper killed Abigail. I don’t want to be drawn to him but I can’t help it.”

Hannibal was silent for a few moments. “And me?” he asked finally, quietly. “Do you know how you feel about me?”

Will’s heart thudded; it raced double time in his chest, heating his cheeks. “Yes,” he rasped. It took a few tries for him to speak, but he was close enough to Hannibal that his lips brushed the other man’s skin, and by the time they drifted off to sleep, Will wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the kisses he’d mouthed against the other man’s throat.

His dreams hadn’t been perfect, but they’d been better. He’d only woken up once, just before the break of dawn, shaking and panting from chasing Abigail through winding trees, calling after her in a panic, seeing a fleet-footed shadow out of the corner of his eyes headed towards her. He’d run, and then he’d realized that he was in his woods headed towards the Wendigo’s clearing, and when he finally emerged into it he saw Abigail crouched at the Wendigo’s feet with its wings arched around her.

Hannibal hadn’t asked, when he’d jerked awake; he’d just held him, still half-asleep as he ran his fingers through Will’s hair, his breaths soft and even until Will sank into sleep again for the few remaining hours before sunrise.

He went to see the Wendigo the morning after he’d gotten back. It was there waiting for him again, always as if it had known he was coming.

“I don’t have anything fresh for you this time,” he said. “Just got back from South Carolina. But I think you knew that already.” He pulled out a large ziplock bag from his backpack. “I thawed some frozen trout for you though, if you want.”

The Wendigo clicked; its feathers ruffled. It stalked forward, elegant and silent-footed as always, taking the fish directly from Will’s hands but being careful not to touch him.

Will suppressed a sigh. Always light-footed, always keeping that last bit of distance between them.

“Look,” he said with an amused smile as it crouched down several feet away and began to eat. “You trust me; I know that. I’ve earned that. And I think I trust you, too, given that you’d have had more than enough opportunities to hurt or kill me and you haven’t. And yet I’ve never touched you, even though the whole purpose of me earning your trust was so that you’d let me look at your wing and help you fly again.”

The Wendigo paused in its eating, looked up at him, shifted its broken left wing.

“Yes, that,” Will said.

The Wendigo clicked rapidly several times, sat up and watched him.

There were a few long moments of silence.

“Um.” Will glanced at its trout, which now lay ignored at its feet. “You going to finish that?”

The Wendigo clicked again, shifted its left wing, looked at him pointedly.

Will’s breath left him in a soft huff. “Oh,” he said. He took a step forward, watching the Wendigo carefully should it suddenly decide that he was getting too close; its black, black eyes were fixed on him, but it didn’t move.

A few more steps and it was in front of him, close enough to touch. He could see the slight shift of the feathers on its chest with every slow, deep breath, and it was silent enough that he could almost hear the rapid thump of his heart.

The Wendigo lifted its left wing, extended it out to its full length. The black of the feathers almost shimmered, the white blinding and the golden brown like the light of a muted sunset. Even bent and broken, the wing was magnificent, stretching at least ten feet from base to tip.

But the injury looked worse close up than he’d thought. It had been months since he’d first seen it, and since then, the broken bones hadn’t set properly before they’d healed. The muscles were warped around the twisted bone now, and it would take another break, a proper stint, and months more of healing and strengthening just for it to have a chance to fly again.

Now that he’d seen the wound up close, he didn’t think it would. He’d seen injured birds; he knew the line beyond which an injury was unsalvageable, and this wing looked to be beyond that.

But maybe there would be a miracle. The Wendigo itself was a miracle, after all.

He swallowed, lifted a hand slowly, let his fingertips hover over the Wendigo’s wing. They stood frozen there for a moment, in the eternity between two heartbeats, Will’s eyes locked on the ruined wing and the Wendigo’s eyes locked on Will.

And then Will reached out and touched.

Immediately, it was like a storm assaulting his thoughts. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything but howling and shrieking wind, deafening, and then something that screamed _Will_ , that enveloped him and flooded his mind with his own presence, and anger, and hunger.

He recoiled with a shout, scrambling backwards, eyes wide and heart pummeling the inside of his ribs, the breath knocked from his body—his hand left the Wendigo’s wing, and the storm was gone.

The Wendigo was still watching him, as calm as it had ever been, unmoving.

It was a few moments before Will could move again. Adrenaline was still rushing through him, turning his blood to acid and burning him; he’d fallen backwards, and he stood slowly, cautiously, ignoring the thunderous pound of his heart.

“That was…that was you,” Will said breathlessly. “That was your mind.”

The Wendigo blinked twice, the two translucent membranes sliding smoothly over expressionless black eyes.

Will swallowed, took a hesitant step forward. It had been terrifying, and there was still something in his head screaming danger, telling him to turn and run and never look back, but there had been something curiously exhilarating about it too, something thrilling about that split-second when he’d been overwhelmed by the essence of another mind and started to lose himself in it.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he did, would it? He had let the minds of killers consume him, overwhelm him until he felt like they were the same, so that he could see how they killed and why they killed, and he’d always been able to pull himself out of it.

There was no reason it shouldn’t be the same this time.

He reached forward, gritted his teeth, touched the wing again.

It was more bearable this time, now that he knew what was coming. The Wendigo’s mind was still a storm, a haze of red over his eyes, but he could hear it more clearly now. It thought in feelings, in emotions and pictures and smells and sounds, and he felt _himself_ , centered in the eye of that storm, and the whirlwind surrounding him was hunger and desire and ownership, a sense of possession so strong that he felt his mind slipping away, giving into the storm and being swept away by its winds. He was being pulled into the Wendigo because it _wanted_ him, craved him until he consumed its mind.

There was violence too; he could feel it. He knew the Wendigo could see into his mind, into his body, just as it was exposed to him; there was a thrum of energy in its muscles, an unleashed potential, a barely-contained desire to hurt. It was feral, it was primal, and Will felt a tug deep in his belly, a blossoming heat that spread outwards to flush his cheeks and harden between his legs.

His lips parted; he let himself give into the relentless roar of the Wendigo’s mind, let himself be consumed by the destruction it brought. And then he felt something shift inside him, something so fundamental to his being that was tugged just a bit out of place, and he wanted to give into the Wendigo, become a part of it, meld until he was one with its destruction.

Because there was order in that chaos, a type of structure that only he could see. The Wendigo’s mind was like the Ripper—no, it was _more_ than the Ripper, its beauty and refined elegance coming from him but the rage from something else entirely.

Will’s breath shuddered; his body shook and his eyes fluttered closed. It had only been a few heartbeats since he’d placed his hand on the Wendigo’s wing a second time, but it felt eons longer, and then he suddenly became aware of how quickly his mind was slipping away and how hard it was becoming to hold onto himself.

“Stop,” he gasped out, squeezing his eyes shut and gathering his mind, pulling together what felt like tattered shreds and open wounds, trying to take a step back and distance himself from the violence, from the ecstasy of indulging in that fury, and then with what felt like enormous effort he wrenched his hand from the Wendigo’s wing, and the devastating presence of its mind vanished, and they were two separate beings again, staring at each other across emptiness.

Blackness swam at the edges of his vision, dark as the Wendigo’s feathers. He swayed, his eyes closed, and he crumpled to the ground.


	7. Chapter 7

MAY

Will jerked awake. His chest was heaving, and for a few moments he didn’t know where he was, but then he took in the dark walls, the red-and-cream curtains, the man sitting in the leather seat across from him with a concerned expression on his face.

“Are you alright, Will?” Hannibal asked.

Will blinked, frowned, cleared his throat. “Um. What day is it?”

“It’s May twenty-fourth, almost eight in the evening,” Hannibal said. He paused. “You were telling me about a mental connection you had with the Wendigo.”

Will cleared his throat again. “I don’t…I don’t remember how I got here.”

Hannibal sat forward in his chair. “Do you remember anything from the last few hours?”

“The last thing I remember is seeing the Wendigo. Touching it, and feeling this presence in my head—overwhelming, deafening, even though it wasn’t actually making any sound. I remember…I think I remember leaving my house.” He swallowed. “And then I woke up here.”

“You have been exhibiting several symptoms of dissociation since you arrived,” Hannibal admitted. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“Surprised I made it here at all,” Will muttered.

There was a brief silence.

“Would you like to continue the session?” Hannibal asked. “You were talking about feeling a sense of possession.”

“Ownership,” Will said after a silence. “Of the Wendigo over me. That’s what I felt.” He paused again for a moment. “I felt it. It was the Wendigo’s mind in mine, and the only thing I could feel was it wanting to own me. It wasn’t speaking, it wasn’t anything like that. It didn’t talk to me in language, except for saying—shouting—my name. Everything else was just pure emotion.”

“And this happened only when you made physical contact?”

“Yes.” Will’s mouth was dry. He remembered touching the black feathers, the immediate reaction overwhelming his senses like they were caught up in the whirlwind that was the Wendigo’s mind. “I touched it again after that,” he said. “I wasn’t sure the first time, if it had been real or if I had just been hallucinating it, so I touched it again. And it was better this time, it was still overwhelming but bearable for a few seconds longer. And I…I understood it better.” His voice shook; there was a thin layer of sweat on his temples.

Hannibal leaned forward; his eyes were clear, his face expressionless. “What did it show you?”

“I felt…violent,” Will whispered. “There was so much anger there, so much blood. It was like everything existed in a haze of red, like a storm whipping around inside it. I felt like I had become part of it for just those few moments, like it was taking over me, and the sheer _strength_ of that pull…I didn’t know if I’d be able to separate myself from it, and I don’t know if I even _wanted_ to separate myself from it. Because I…I liked it. Whatever it was in the Wendigo’s mind, it made me feel good.”

“Good in an emotional way, or in a physical way?” Hannibal’s voice was quiet.

Will swallowed, remembered the feeling, couldn’t stop his eyes from flickering to Hannibal’s throat, then up to his lips. “Both,” he rasped.

Hannibal was still for a few moments; there was no doubt he’d seen where Will’s eyes had gone. “You felt an emotional rush from the violence and were aroused by it,” he said.

Will shivered. “Yes.”

Hannibal sat back in his seat, watched Will closely. “This is not unlike the profile you put together for the Ripper,” he said. “Yet, like when we discussed what you would have done with Sofia Langley, this does not seem to bother you as much as it may have before.”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “I don’t think ‘bothered’ would be the right word to describe how I’m feeling right now. ‘Obsessed’ might be better.” He smiled humorlessly. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“It’s normal to find it difficult to stop thinking about unexpectedly arousing situations,” Hannibal said, and his smile was genuine.

Will huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I suppose so.” He swallowed, glanced up at Hannibal. “The Wendigo…it felt like the Ripper. Even just touching its wing, I felt like I knew him. When the Wendigo’s mind caught me and pulled me in, I felt like it was the Ripper doing it too. And I liked it, even though I knew what was happening. It felt like…a fantasy.” His voice was almost a whisper. “It felt like the Wendigo knew how I fantasized about the Ripper learning about me with his hands, understanding my mind enough to set me free, and it…it wanted to give that to me.”

There was a clench in his belly, a knot of heat that radiated out to his limbs, accelerated the beating of his heart. His hands shook slightly and there was a faint ache behind his eyes, not as much painful as it was cloudy in his thoughts.

“Will,” Hannibal said quietly. “Will, are you alright?”

Will took a deep, shuddering breath to calm himself; it only half-worked. “Yeah. I’m just…I’m going to wash up. If that’s okay. Sorry, I…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely to the sweat on his face. He felt himself flush.

“Of course,” Hannibal said. “You know where the restroom is?”

“I…yeah,” Will mumbled. He found his way there and, without bothering to close the door, turned the tap to the coldest it would go and splashed his face until the shock of the cold wore off and his skin went numb. Hannibal kept his office orderly but homely; Will dried his face on one of the supplied hand towels, turned around to leave, and that’s when he saw it.

A blue butterfly wing, sitting on the ledge below the mirror.

Will recoiled instinctively. For a moment, he felt panic surge through him. _The Wendigo—_ but no, that was impossible. It couldn’t have gotten in, not without being noticed. And the Wendigo itself was impossible. But what else could it have been? Surely he hadn’t lost time again, surely he hadn’t missed anything—

It had to be the Wendigo. It had to be the Wendigo, knowing that he had told Hannibal about it and warning him by bring him the butterfly wing, telling him that he’d made a mistake, that retribution was coming to him for betraying their secret. The Wendigo was reminding him of what it was capable of, telling him that his punishment would come as death in a beautiful display. There would be a reckoning for Will’s betrayal, and a claiming of Will as its own. But—no, that was wrong, too. Will looked closer, feeling a mounting sense of dread.

This wasn’t his butterfly wing. Will’s butterfly wing had been the left wing.

This was the right.

Will felt like he had been punched in the gut. “ _Oh_.” His breath left him in a soft huff, and suddenly, he understood. His first instinct had been right. The Wendigo hadn’t been here; it couldn’t have been. The Wendigo hadn’t put the wing there. And most importantly, this wing wasn’t a warning; it was an offer.

Will swallowed, put a hand out to steady himself. He felt like the world was spinning; he was still reeling from the panic of the Wendigo’s threat, but he’d turned right around and found himself in a situation more dangerous than anything his mind could have conjured up on its own.

Danger prickled on the back of his neck again. He looked up into the mirror, and saw Hannibal.

Their eyes met in the mirror. For a while, neither of them spoke.

Millions of thoughts assaulted Will’s mind. He wanted to know _why_ , he wanted to know _how_ , he wanted to know _when_. He saw the victims and the elegant displays and the perfect splatters of blood and the poetic beauty that radiated from all of the creations, and he felt the poised calmness amidst the violence and the quiet deadliness in the precision, and he saw the other half of the blue butterfly on the ledge and its twin reflected in the mirror with Hannibal behind it and his hands tightened on the edges of the sink and all he could think was you you you you _you—_

“I collect butterflies sometimes,” Hannibal said finally. There was something different about his voice now; it was colder, lower, more deadly. Or maybe those things had always been there and Will had just been to fucking stupid to notice them earlier, attributing it to just interest or a twisted appetite, a peculiar tolerance for things that perhaps shouldn’t be tolerated, instead of just looking it in the fucking face and seeing it for what it was.

Will turned around to face him. “Seems like you missed a wing,” he said lightly.

“Mm. Suppose I did. Careless,” Hannibal said. He looked outwardly relaxed, but Will could sense a wariness, an excitement, beneath the calm exterior. He was a predator, but his prey had spotted him, and they were both waiting for the other to make the first move.

Will shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d felt the strength and deadliness in the touch of his hands, seen the coldness and impassiveness in the glint of his eyes, heard the reverent beauty radiating out of him when he spoke of killing no matter how hard he tried to hide it. He should’ve known from the very beginning, but he’d missed it.

He swallowed, forced himself to breathe normally. Had he missed it, or had he been too blinded by interest to care? Too driven by desire to believe otherwise that he let willful ignorance stake its claim over him? He’d sensed danger from the beginning, after all, but he’d convinced himself that it was just because of Hannibal’s interest in how Will experienced killing, an overattachment borne of fascination with how Will’s mind worked. And he’d stayed and listened while anyone else might have run— _that_ was what Will had attributed the danger to: an unhealthy interest in potential killers.

He’d never considered the possibility that Hannibal himself might be one.

Abigail’s face flickered in the back of his mind and a blinding anger surged through him like the Wendigo’s rage. This was the Ripper in front of him; the man responsible for Abigail’s death—through jealousy and selfishness, through deliberate malice. He’d acted with no regard for anyone except himself and what he wanted Will to do—as usual, of course, but it had hurt this time. He’d been trying to get Abigail out of the way between them and trying to get Will to kill someone for the first time and that had been all he’d cared about, and it had worked; he’d gotten the reaction he’d been looking for. Will had fallen into his trap.

And Will was _still_ drawn to him.

In the end, it was Hannibal who moved first. He took a step forward and Will couldn’t help but shrink back, reach backwards and clutch at the bowl of the sink as if it would do anything to protect him. He was cornered now, and both of them knew it.

But as soon as he moved, Hannibal stopped; a cornered animal was unpredictable, after all, and could easily become the attacker. For another long, long moment, they just watched each other.

“What do you want, Will?” Hannibal asked finally.

Will let out a strangled laugh that was slightly hysterical. “What do I want? Are you really asking me that right now?” He laughed again. “I don’t know, I want to live in a house by the shore so I can hear the waves all the time and go fishing, I suppose.”

Hannibal gave him a mildly exasperated look. “ _Will_.”

“Fine, fine.” Will swallowed, forced his breathing to steady, forced the wildness to calm. He looked at Hannibal, forced himself to reconcile the psychiatrist with the killer who had been wooing him for so long. He thought about the beauty in the kills and how thrilled he felt when he analyzed them, visualized them, pretended to have done them. He thought about how incredible it was to have that done _for_ him, and how alive it made him feel, and how disgusted in himself he was after for feeling that way, because he was FBI and he should want to protect people and catch killers but instead he felt like he was becoming the very person he should be catching.

He thought about how Hannibal had killed Abigail. He thought about how Hannibal was the type of person he should feel good about killing. And the thought about how Hannibal had somehow managed to seduce him nevertheless.

“I…I don’t know what I want,” he rasped. “I don’t know if I want to join the Ripper or catch him. I’m being called in two directions, by you and Jack, and I’m afraid to see what’s on the other side of the doors you hold open.”

“You’ve gotten a taste of both,” Hannibal said. “They both make you feel good.”

Will’s breath hitched in his throat; the heat that had been knotted deep inside him was suddenly burning now. “In slightly different ways, perhaps,” he said. He glanced down at Hannibal’s mouth; a quick but purposeful movement. He could almost feel Hannibal’s hands on his body in his memory though several feet of space still separated them, and a shudder ran through his body. When he spoke, he spoke slowly, deliberately. “Even if I don’t know what I want in the end, I think I can be clear enough about what I might be interested in now.”

Hannibal flushed; it was the slightest dusting of pink on his cheeks. “Will—”

“I said before that my two options to respond to the Ripper were either to reject him, or, in accepting him, to yield to him,” Will said. He swallowed. “I neglected to consider that acceptance, that _yielding_ , can go two ways.”

He saw the uptick in Hannibal’s breathing. “I trust that you’d tell me if I were interpreting this incorrectly,” Hannibal said.

“I think we both know you aren’t,” Will replied. His voice was hoarse. “And I don’t think you’d care either way.”

“Do you really think so little of me, Will?” Hannibal asked, the slight tilt of his head making him look almost, deceptively, innocent.

Will’s hands tightened. The danger was prickling on the back of his neck again; Hannibal was death incarnate, and he was in front of him, and he wanted him. “I thought the world of you, Hannibal,” Will rasped.

Hannibal’s lips twitched; it was the ghost of a smile gracing his severe features. He stalked forward, and Will let him, and he cornered Will against the sink, and Will let him do that too. His heart pounded double-time at Hannibal’s proximity; his breath came fast and shallow in his throat.

“I will not… _violate_ you,” Hannibal said quietly. There was a slight rasp in his voice. “Whatever happens now, happens only with your consent. You only need to tell me, and I’ll stop. You know this.”

Will drew a shuddering breath. “Somehow knowing who you are makes this whole thing more complicated,” he said shakily, looking at Hannibal’s chest because he couldn’t meet Hannibal’s eyes. “I can’t tell if I’m being blinded to the Ripper’s sins by the good doctor’s virtues, or if I actually don’t think the Ripper himself is all that bad.” He swallowed. “I suppose the Ripper can’t be all terrible if he’s also you. No black and white, as you said. Just a matter of perspective.”

“I’m surprised it took you this long to figure it out,” Hannibal said.

Will huffed a laugh. “You know my thought process isn’t particularly stable.” There was a tightness in his belly, a heat between his legs. The pounding of his heart was only partly because of fear. He wondered if Hannibal could smell it, the _want_ that was surging through him. Hannibal and the Ripper were here in one, and he wanted those hands to sculpt him.

“You only need to say the words,” Hannibal said softly. His hands ghosted over Will’s body, barely brushing the cotton of his shirt, just close enough for the hair on Will’s skin to prickle.

“I was blind,” Will said, and his voice was almost a whisper. “I was so blind. I know…I know you kept things from me, I know you wanted me to see the Ripper even if you didn’t always want me to see you, but I should’ve known. I should’ve seen it anyway. I should’ve seen it when you didn’t pull away from me, when you weren’t afraid even when you should’ve been. I should’ve seen the way you manipulated me— _you_ , Hannibal Lecter, as my psychiatrist, not even as the Ripper. You came to me under the guise of understanding and grounding and tried to make me feel like killing was okay.”

“Did I succeed?”

“No,” Will said. His voice shook as Hannibal’s fingers snaked under his belt and tugged lightly. “I’ve seen what killing feels like, thanks to you. I’ve seen what can be done with it. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s good or okay.” He hissed as Hannibal’s thumb pressed into the softness above his hip. “That _hurts_ , Hannibal.”

Hannibal stilled. “Do you want me to stop?”

Will swallowed. “I didn’t say that.”

A small smile spread itself briefly across Hannibal’s face. “You said you liked it,” Hannibal murmured, about what the Ripper had done. “Perhaps not in those exact words, but I understood. You accepted the gifts. You accepted the Ripper. You took the time and care to understand him and everything he did.” He slipped a hand back onto Will’s waist; Will stiffened but didn’t flinch away.

“You said it excited you,” Hannibal continued, and his voice was a low rasp. Will could hear the hunger in it, felt that hunger echoed in the frantic rush of blood through his own veins. “Back when you first came to me about Garret Jacob Hobbs and talked to me about killing, you said it excited you. You said the last time you’d felt that way was when you saw the Ripper’s work, even though it was just in case files. You didn’t know it, of course, but you meant that the last time was when you saw _me_.”

Will swallowed. He saw Hannibal’s eyes flicker down to the movement of his throat, saw the widening of the other man’s pupils.

Hannibal moved ever closer. His hips were just barely brushing against Will’s now; he’d crowded Will back against the sink and was effectively pinning him there with one hand still on Will’s waist. He lifted his other hand slowly, and it hovered millimeters above Will’s cheek. Will didn’t dare move.

“Does this excite you now?” Hannibal asked.

Will’s lips parted. “Yes,” he breathed.

When Hannibal finally touched his bare skin, it was electric. Will gasped at the heat of Hannibal’s hand on his cheek; the touch was light at first, and then Hannibal was gripping the back of his neck and pulling him into a kiss. The hand on his waist tightened, slipped to the small of his back, slipped down to his ass.

Will felt like he was drowning. Hannibal’s lips were softer than he’d imagined them to be, but his tongue was dexterous and skilled as it licked its way into Will’s mouth. Will kissed back fiercely, forcing his grip to loosen on the sink so he could grasp at Hannibal’s shoulders, pulling the other man in close. He ran his fingers through Hannibal’s hair, messing with the neat combing, tugging at the roots. He wanted to be closer, closer, _within_. He wanted to be one with the Chesapeake Ripper, to see him, to _know_ him, and then yielding wasn’t enough; he wanted to _take_.

He could feel Hannibal’s hands roaming, groping at his ass, tugging at his hair. He nipped at Hannibal’s lips, biting down until he tasted blood. Hannibal hissed, slipping both hands under his ass and lifting him up; Will stifled a cry of surprise and clung to Hannibal’s shoulders, reflexively wrapping his legs around Hannibal’s waist. He rolled his hips against the other man’s and felt the hard press of his length; hot and heavy against his own.

“I suppose having a bed in your office would be too much to ask for?” Will huffed between kisses.

“I try to be prepared for all situations with patients. Unfortunately this is one that I did not foresee when selecting furniture,” Hannibal admitted.

“You hoped for it, though,” Will said, and ducked his head down to bite at Hannibal’s throat when Hannibal made a noncommittal noise. He clung to the other man as he brought them both into the main office, hesitating slightly at the doorway as if he, for once, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.

“I’ll fuck you on the desk,” Will suggested, teeth and lips and tongue still worrying Hannibal’s neck. There were bruises forming already above the collar and he _liked_ it, the feeling of owning the Ripper, of marking him and claiming him.

He heard Hannibal’s breath stutter ever so slightly at his words, but when he spoke, his voice was perfectly steady. “Who says you’re doing the fucking?”

Will hissed, biting down just under Hannibal’s jaw. He unhooked his legs from around Hannibal’s waist, forcing the other man to let him down to his feet, and deftly spun them around so that their positions were reversed. He pushed forward aggressively, hands fumbling and groping and slipping fiercely between Hannibal’s legs as he crowded Hannibal backwards until the back of the other man’s thighs hit the mahogany.

“ _I_ say I’m doing the fucking,” Will said. He held Hannibal there in front of him, pinned between his hips and a two-hundred-pound desk. His hands were still between Hannibal’s legs and he squeezed gently, relishing the catch in Hannibal’s breath at the pressure, the slight press up against his palm. “I say I’m doing the fucking, and you’re going to shut up and take it. You’re going to _submit_.”

“Such dirty words from such a pretty mouth,” Hannibal said, slightly breathless.

Will arched an eyebrow. “So you think I’m pretty too, do you?”

“I wasn’t drawn to you just for your mind, Will, and I’m not blind.” There was a light behind Hannibal’s eyes; excitement, lust. His hands were still on Will’s waist and his grip tightened, pulling Will’s hips forward as he lunged forward to catch Will’s mouth with his own. His touch was hungry now; searching and reaching and groping. His hands slipped under Will’s pants and Will gasped against Hannibal’s mouth at the sudden burning heat of the man’s palms against his bare skin, fingertips edging into his crack and gripping the curve of his ass.

Hannibal had leverage now; he sucked hard on Will’s bottom lip and pulled Will forward so that their bodies were pressed flush against each other. Will’s hands were on Hannibal’s sides, skimming up and down the fabric of his shirt under his suit jacket, fingertips finding every rib and digging into the softness between them, hands grabbing and claiming. Hannibal rolled his hips and Will couldn’t hold back a moan at the tease of friction and pressure, couldn’t help but clutch at Hannibal as his knees faltered.

That was what Hannibal was waiting for. He spun Will around and slammed him down onto his back on the desk, pinning him there and rutting shamelessly against him. His body moved in single, fluid motions; Will’s breath left him in a sharp huff, stunned briefly into helplessness. Hannibal’s hands were on his body, tearing his shirt out from where it was tucked neatly into his pants and rucking it up around his chest, tugging at his pants until they rode low across his hips, touching and groping and reaching like he was the earth and Hannibal was trying to shape a body from the clay of him.

Hannibal’s hands reaching down between his legs jerked Will’s body back into motion. He gasped, his hips bucking up into Hannibal’s touch, his jaw tilting involuntarily to expose his neck to Hannibal’s lips and teeth. He felt Hannibal nip and then press his tongue against the bite; his breath stuttered in pain, in arousal. Hannibal’s hands slipped up to his chest, fingers bruising his ribs, sinking into the softness of his belly. He writhed, bit off a cry, gripping Hannibal’s wrists because the pressure _hurt_ , and Hannibal growled and shoved his hands away and the Ripper mapped his way around Will’s body over curves of muscle and pushed deep to know him under skin and tendon woven around bone.

“Hannibal—” Will choked out, and Hannibal silenced him with a kiss, tender and gentle and loving and vicious all at once, catching Will’s gasped breath, his hips rolling between Will’s shaking thighs and giving no indication that the nails Will was sinking into his forearms hurt him, acknowledging with burning kisses the pain he was causing and doing nothing to stop it.

“Hannibal,” Will tried again, twisting away from him, and Hannibal hissed and pressed him down. It was _hot_ , and Will couldn’t help but push up against Hannibal, moving with the other man, but it wasn’t what he’d come here to do, not now, not tonight; he hadn’t come here to be claimed. Will’s hands found Hannibal’s shoulders as Hannibal’s hands charted all the edges and curves of his body, all the firm ridges of muscle and bone and all the softness that lay between and beneath, and then Will’s hands slipped up higher to Hannibal’s throat.

“ _No_.” It was more of a harsh growl than a spoken word that came out of Hannibal’s mouth, and then Hannibal’s hands hurt again and Will couldn’t hold back a cry. Hannibal’s lips were on his neck and he bit down and drew blood; his fingers left bruises on Will’s hips and belly and sides. They fought each other, Hannibal trying to pin Will to the desk and Will trying to wiggle free, Hannibal trying to hold Will’s wrists down and Will trying to get his hands to Hannibal’s throat. Will writhed under him, the rhythm that Hannibal was setting sending pleasure shooting up his spine, but it wasn’t right, it wasn’t what he wanted, _he_ was supposed to be the one taking the Ripper for his own—

And then Will drew his right knee up far enough that he could dig his heel into Hannibal’s flank. The surprise caused Hannibal to shrink back, caused Hannibal’s grip on Will’s wrists to weaken ever so slightly and Will pulled free, pushing up on Hannibal’s chest; it was just enough for Will to push himself sideways and out from under the other man. He reached up with one hand as he stood up off the desk and tangled his fingers in Hannibal’s hair, yanking the man’s head back to expose his throat; at the same time, he gripped Hannibal’s wrist with the other hand and in one swift motion rotated the man’s arm and pinned it up against his back.

Hannibal stilled.

They were both breathing hard and covered in a light sheen of sweat, and Will could see the heightened pulse in Hannibal’s neck, but the man didn’t move.

“Technically, I won first,” Hannibal said, slightly breathless, and Will could hear the amusement in his voice.

“It doesn’t matter if you win the first time if you’re caught the last time,” Will answered.

“True,” Hannibal conceded. He shifted slightly; Will tutted, and he fell still again. “I’ll admit this is a rather compromising position for me, but not before I point out that it’s less compromising than the one you found yourself in not more than a few moments before.” He chuckled, still breathless.

“And both are less compromising than the position you will find yourself in not more than a few moments from now,” Will said, pushing Hannibal’s arm up until the man’s breath caught in his throat with pain. He held Hannibal there, tugged on his hair to keep his throat open and exposed, waited until finally, the tension in Hannibal’s body slipped away.

It was over, and they both knew it.

Will released him then, and slowly, Hannibal turned around to face him. His cheeks were flushed and his suit was wrinkled; his perfectly coiffed hair was disheveled. His lips were red with Will’s blood. Will swallowed and he saw Hannibal’s gaze dart down to follow the movement, but there was a submissive undertone to the lines of the man’s body now. For now, at least, Will had won. The courtship had been settled; what followed next could now begin.

“I told you,” Will said quietly, with a hint of a smile, and Hannibal inclined his head.

“I have condoms and lubricant in the desk drawer,” Hannibal said.

“Of course you do, you bastard,” Will muttered.

“Third drawer down on the left,” Hannibal said helpfully, so calmly that Will would’ve thought he was indifferent if he’d been anyone else. But this was the Chesapeake Ripper, and Will understood him better than anyone.

Will retrieved the lube and a condom, placing them within easy reach before returning to stand in front of Hannibal. Despite the dishevelment, the other man was still somehow perfectly poised, carefully and intricately put together like everything he wore was a mask—the illusion of society wrapped around a deadly venom.

Will wanted to remove that mask. He wanted to see what was beneath it and reveal the Ripper, to know what was so carefully hidden away. He wanted to see the man responsible for so much beauty, so much destruction; he wanted to see what the Ripper had now promised him was his.

Interest. That was all.

When Will unbuttoned Hannibal’s coat and slipped it from his shoulders, it wasn’t out of love. When he undid Hannibal’s tie and listened to the whisper of silk against the linen shirt as he drew it from around the man’s neck, it wasn’t out of tenderness. When he stepped forward and pressed a kiss to Hannibal’s lips, it wasn’t out of care.

He’d won, but Hannibal had seduced him, and he hated it.

But he _wanted_. He lavished kisses against Hannibal’s throat now, wet and sloppy and almost gentle, mouthing instead of biting, hands deftly unbuttoning Hannibal’s shirt and slipping underneath to rest against hot, hot skin.

He felt Hannibal’s hands on him too, tugging his shirt out from where it was tucked into his pants, reaching under and gripping his waist, fingertips edging under his belt and teasing. His touch was so much softer than it had been just a few moments ago when they had clawed hungrily at each other, eager to devour each other’s bodies and consume all that they were, but the undercurrent was still roaming, tasting, searching, wanting.

Will let out a low growl, rolling his hips against Hannibal’s, fumbling with the clasp of Hannibal’s belt as he kissed and sucked and licked and tasted the sweetness of Hannibal’s aftershave.

“If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought you cared,” Hannibal murmured, as Will lavished kisses against his neck.

“And I’d call you stupid to believe that,” Will returned, his voice muffled against Hannibal’s skin. It was softer than he’d imagined it to be, more delicate and fragile where it stretched over his jugular, where it rested neatly across his carotid. Will could feel it, the rush of blood with every heartbeat, carrying Hannibal’s life packaged away so neatly. He could feel when Hannibal spoke, too, deep down in his throat.

“Indeed. I suppose it would be foolish to believe that you could feel for the man who killed Abigail and her father.”

And then there was anger again. Blinding, white-hot rage that surged through him, and when the senseless fury slipped away Will found that Hannibal was on his back on the desk, and Will was standing over him, and Will had his hands around Hannibal’s throat. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to take all the pain Hannibal had given him and inflict it on Hannibal’s body, wanted to bleed and carve and deny him death until Hannibal begged him for it.

But Hannibal was smiling—no, he was _laughing_. There was delight in the dark depths of his eyes, a kind of feral ecstasy, and Will realized that this is exactly what Hannibal had wanted.

Well. If this was what the Ripper wanted from him, Will could play along.

He squeezed tighter. He heard Hannibal draw in a sharp, choked breath, felt Hannibal’s hands come up to grip his forearms. A mirror of the Shrike, now, pinned helpless beneath his hands, but now Will wanted to claim before he killed, and he was in a perfect position to do that now, too. He was between Hannibal’s legs and he felt the other man’s thighs press against his hips, felt Hannibal push up insistently against him.

It was exhilarating. Hannibal was a larger man than him, but he had the advantage here. Here, he could crush Hannibal’s throat with ease; he just had to lean forward a little more, put a little bit more weight on his hands, and he could crush the man’s windpipe. Or he could dig in his nails and rip out the carotid, and Hannibal could bleed to death in his hands right here and now.

He tilted his head back and let out a low moan at the thought. He could kill Hannibal right now as he lay vulnerable beneath him, already beginning to grow unconscious from lack of oxygenated blood flow to his brain. It would be so easy.

It would also be over so quickly.

It was out of anger that he released Hannibal, he told himself. It was out of anger that he pulled at the man’s belt and button and fly, and it was out of anger that he ripped the clothes off the other man’s body and pushed him down naked over the desk.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Will said quietly; his voice was a whirlwind of cold fury. He undid his own pants without bothering to remove the rest of his clothes, ripped open the condom wrapper, and rolled the condom onto himself. Hannibal had heaved a gasp when Will had torn his hands away from his throat, his back arching up off the desk and exposing his neck beautifully. It would cut so easily if Will ran a knife across it; it would tear so delicately if he sank his teeth into it. His death would be glorious, his arterial spray painting a masterpiece into the rug, onto the desk and walls, against Will’s lips.

Hannibal was silent, even if still breathing more heavily than normal. His skin was flushed, his pupils dilated as he watched Will. He was hard, his length hot and thick where it rested up against his belly.

“You could’ve just _asked_ , you absolute fucking lunatic,” Will muttered.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Hannibal replied, slightly breathless.

“Fun?” Will’s lips twitched; he wasn’t sure if it was a smile or a grimace. “Only you would think manipulating me into this position was fun. But I’m going to fuck you anyway,” Will said, and Hannibal’s breath stuttered. Will saw the uptick in his heartbeat from where it pulsated gently in his neck. He pushed Hannibal’s knees apart, lifted them so his hands rested on the backs of Hannibal’s thighs, and positioned himself against Hannibal’s entrance.

He wasn’t going to prepare him. If Hannibal wanted a fucking, he would get it.

He pushed in slowly, relishing the squeezing pressure and the bit-off curse that escaped from between Hannibal’s lips. The heat enveloped him, spread up his groin into his chest and up into a heady ecstasy by the time it reached his brain. He couldn’t hold back a moan as Hannibal tightened around him, couldn’t help squeezing the backs of Hannibal’s thighs until his fingertips turned white and Hannibal’s skin turned red.

“Will,” Hannibal choked out, and Will nearly came right then and there at that broken sound, still only half-buried in the Ripper’s heat, the culmination of their twisted obsession barely even begun.

He pushed in all the way and Hannibal cried out, his body stiffening, his head thrown back and his shoulders tense. Will could see the heaving in his chest, the wetness already starting to spill from the other man’s cock.

Will leaned forward then, pressing down between Hannibal’s thighs until his lips could graze Hannibal’s still-heaving chest, until his teeth could nip at the wings of Hannibal’s collarbones. He felt Hannibal shiver beneath him, felt the tension from the pain in the rigidness of the man’s body.

“Will,” Hannibal gasped again, and his hand abandoned its death grip on the desk to clutch at Will’s shoulder.

Will sucked at Hannibal’s collarbone, moved down to tongue at a nipple. Hannibal’s neck was already red and bruised; it seemed only fair to extend that down to the rest of him, to claim the Ripper as his territory, his prey, his own. And Will wanted to claim him—he wanted to claim _all_ of him. He’d won, after all; the Ripper was already his to take. And he wanted him to _hurt_.

He sank his teeth into Hannibal’s chest in sudden passion and heard Hannibal gasp, felt him tighten around him and cant his hips up against him.

“Tell me what you want,” Will growled, slipping one hand to the inside of Hannibal’s thigh, stroking the softness there and edging down to his groin.

“I want you to _move_ ,” Hannibal said, even though his voice was tight with pain and his grip rigid on Will’s shoulder.

Will took Hannibal’s length in his hand, thumbed over the head, felt Hannibal’s sharp intake of breath. He leaned up so his lips were brushing Hannibal’s neck, still stroking the heat of Hannibal’s length, and spoke quietly, bitingly, clearly.

“ _Beg_.”

Hannibal’s breath stuttered. Will still had his length in his hand, pulling firmly and slowly—too slowly for any real rhythm or true satisfaction, but enough to tease—and he nipped gently at Hannibal’s neck, nibbled at his jaw. He felt the movement of Hannibal’s throat against his lips as he swallowed, felt the tension ribbing the other man’s body. His gaze shifted up to Hannibal’s face and he saw the other man’s eyes fixed on the ceiling, his jaw clenched.

This was the Ripper beneath him. This was the famed, notorious, deadly Chesapeake Ripper, and Will had him pinned down, taken, claimed. Will had him helpless.

He loved it.

Will thumbed the head of Hannibal’s cock again, felt the man buck up into his hand; a delicate flush colored Hannibal’s cheeks and he bit off a cry. Will felt the upwards pressure of the other man’s hips, saw the tendons and veins in the other man’s shoulder at the strength of his grip, knew what Hannibal wanted from him.

Will wasn’t going to tell him again. It was a stalemate now, a face-off between the Ripper and a man who he would have been foolish to consider prey. In the end, it was the Ripper who broke first, as Will knew he would.

Hannibal’s lips parted, and the word that escaped was barely more than a breath. “ _Please_.”

A powerful shudder ran through Will’s body. The word was like a release for him, setting him free to take, to claim. He drew back and then snapped his hips forward, driving into Hannibal’s body in a smooth, fluid motion. Hannibal cried out, tightening around him, and Will was bent over Hannibal’s chest, his lips pressed into the flushed skin under his collarbones and his nose buried in the hollow of Hannibal’s throat. He drew out and pushed in again, and again, and again, building up a rhythm, one hand stroking Hannibal’s length in time with his thrusts and the other bracing himself on the desk above Hannibal’s head.

Will fucked him mercilessly. Hannibal’s body was intoxicating, drawing him in, begging him to push in deeper, harder, faster. Any other moment and Will would have wanted to slow down, to take care and _make love_ , but there was no love here. Here, Hannibal may have seduced him, but there was still only anger between them, and tension, and conflict, and a desire to claim. They acted out of interest and obsession and passion and nothing more, like two raging storms that collided and couldn’t help but become one in their fury. There was no _care_ , regardless of anything Will had said before.

The heat, the pressure, the friction—Will could feel it all building up to a pressure deep in his belly. Hannibal’s skin was slick with sweat now, and Will kissed it roughly, sloppily, sucking constellations of bruises into the paleness and drawing blood with his teeth until it spilled like paint. He felt Hannibal’s hands on him, rucking up his shirt to his chest, slipping under the cotton and pressing directly against hot, hot skin.

“The marks will show,” Hannibal gasped out, as Will’s lips returned to his neck, kissing the faint pinprick scars where not so long ago he’d pushed the broken glass of a wine bottle into his throat.

“I don’t care,” Will said bluntly, and kept kissing, drinking Hannibal in, tasting his blood. Hannibal’s hands had slipped down to his waist, his hips, his ass; holding him steady, anchoring him. Will knew that it had to hurt; it’s not like he’d never been fucked rough before. He knew how it felt. But Hannibal was tilting his hips to take him in deeper, baring his chest and throat to Will’s lips and teeth, his hands on Will’s waist and doing nothing to stop him.

Will had told him to submit, and he’d obeyed.

He drove in, tilting the angle of his thrusts to better hit Hannibal’s prostate, and Hannibal keened. His hands tightened to bruising on Will’s hips, muscle and tendon standing out beautifully in his chest and shoulders, throat bared and vulnerable.

Will almost loved him for it. Here was this fierce, beautiful, deadly creature below him, spread out in complete surrender, and he told himself that the ache in his chest was anger and grief and hate and pain, anything but the unspeakable alternative. He fucked Hannibal with all the fury that was lacking in the Ripper’s displays, all the passion that had been missing in the Ripper’s eyes as he killed. He was a whirlwind, he was the sea; he was the rising tide dashing itself on the Ripper’s steady rocky shores.

Will kissed him. Hannibal gasped into his mouth, opened up eagerly for him; their breaths mingled and teeth clashed and lips bruised, but it felt almost sweet. There was a softness in Hannibal’s bruising touch, a tenderness in the hard lines of his body, and for a moment, as Hannibal yielded to him and kissed him back and whispered his name like he was something holy, Will almost forgot to hate him.

Hannibal was close now; Will could feel it. The man’s breaths were fast and harsh, his pupils blown and his eyes almost glassy. His lips were parted; he let out soft pants with every thrust. Will’s hand was still on Hannibal’s length, and Will fucked him hard, and Hannibal’s fingerprints purpled his skin.

Will was close too. He shoved faster and deeper into Hannibal’s welcoming heat, felt their bodies meet and shudder together. Will slipped his hand further back, pressing at the sensitive skin between Hannibal’s balls and hole, bit down a moan at the noise Hannibal made in response. He pressed down again, moving his fingers firmly and gently, felt Hannibal buck into his hand.

“Will,” Hannibal choked out, and he sounded wrecked.

“I know,” Will said, somehow managing to sound coherent. He gripped the other man’s length again, stroking him in his own rhythm, gritting his teeth against the pressure in his own body begging for release and drove in faster, hitting that sweet spot deep inside over and over—

Hannibal spilled into Will’s hand with a cry, his back arching off the desk and his grip on Will’s waist tightening to pain. Will kept Hannibal’s length in hand, pulling him through the aftershocks even as he felt himself at the edge, even as he felt himself starting to fall. He bit down, teeth sinking into the base of Hannibal’s neck where it spread out to his shoulder. He thrust in once, twice, three times, snapping his hips and driving in—

He came a moment after Hannibal, the cry of Hannibal’s name choked in his throat, his orgasm blinding and coming and waves and waves that sent shudders wracking his body. He buried his face in Hannibal’s chest, his panted breaths burning and his lips a brand on Hannibal’s skin until he’d ridden through the last of it and his mind had cleared enough for him to think. When he could, he could only think of one thing.

 _I just fucked the Chesapeake Ripper_.

A helpless, almost giddy smile tugged at his mouth. It seemed so ridiculous, so absurd, that the Ripper had spent all this time wooing him and killing for him and Will had spent all this time resisting it, that Hannibal had touched him like the Ripper carved his flesh and Will had spent all this time yearning to feel him again, only for this to happen as soon as he figured out who the Ripper was.

He told himself that he didn’t care. What he felt wasn’t love.

“What’s so funny?” Hannibal murmured, still a little breathless.

Will shook his head, his smile still buried in Hannibal’s chest. “Nothing.” They were still pressed flat against each other, their skin sticky and hot and their chests rising and falling in time. Will could feel Hannibal’s heartbeat pounding against his own, a little bit offset, a little bit out of sync.

He took a deep, shaky breath, pushed himself up enough that he was able to slip out. Hannibal winced; Will murmured an apology and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He stood and pulled the condom off of himself, tying it off before tossing it in the trash and zipping himself up.

Hannibal was watching him; he’d propped himself up on his elbows but made no move to retrieve his clothes. “I must say,” he mused, “I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out for a while.”

“Figure what out?”

Hannibal tilted his head. The movement was quick, sharp, precise; almost predatory, even now when he was the one who had been caught. “That acceptance goes both ways. Acceptance, yielding, submitting. In a situation with two parties, meaningful agreement cannot happen without both parties consenting.”

Ah. A wry smile curved Will’s mouth. “The Ripper wanted me to accept him so that he could accept me,” he said.

Hannibal echoed his smile. “Yes.”

Will’s smile faded. He watched Hannibal for a long time. He took in the high, proud cheekbones, the sharp line of his jaw, the straight nose. He looked at the sweeping collarbones and the hollow between them, fluttering with his heartbeat, the way the bones faded into the wiry muscle of Hannibal’s shoulders. He saw the delicate taper of long-fingered hands and the way muscle and tendon stretched over them, the light rise and fall of Hannibal’s belly with every deep, even breath, the casual fold of long, lean legs over the edge of the desk.

So poised, so calm, so graceful. So at home on the surface he’d just been claimed on.

“Tell me,” Will murmured, and he felt Hannibal’s piercing dark gaze flash to his face. “Did you do that on purpose?” He knew the answer, of course; it was obvious. But he wanted Hannibal to admit it. Now that Hannibal had been caught, Will wanted him to confess.

Hannibal looked amused. “I told you I wouldn’t violate you. You had every right to decline.”

Will’s lips twitched. “Having a right is not the same as having an opportunity.”

“True. I admit there was some manipulation involved, but nothing you didn’t know about.”

Will huffed a laugh. “No, nothing I didn’t know about.” And he would have been lying if he’d said that anything he did was unwilling; he’d _wanted_ to fuck Hannibal. He’d _wanted_ to claim him. Those desires had been his own.

What hadn’t been his own was why he’d wanted those things in the first place. That had been the Ripper through and through, drawing him in, luring him closer, enticing him.

“Yes,” Hannibal said after a pause, and he held Will’s gaze evenly. “Yes, that was on purpose.”

“The Ripper seduced me,” Will said. An accusation; a little bit bitter, a little bit angry, though he wasn’t entirely sure who he was accusing. The Ripper had seduced him, and he’d known, and he’d fallen for it anyway.

Not for the first time, he told himself not to think about what that meant for himself.

“You seduced him first,” Hannibal returned.

Will swallowed, held Hannibal’s gaze. “Hardly my fault, was it?” he said softly. “I seduced him just by existing. I never asked for it, I never _tried_ for it; seducing the Ripper was never my explicit intention.” He paused, watched the dark flicker of Hannibal’s eyes. “I doubt I could say the same of you about me.”

Hannibal smiled softly. “No,” he agreed. “I don’t think you could.”

Will was silent. _I thought the world of you_ , he’d said. And it had been true, though in retrospect he realized that he didn’t know what he’d meant, because surely there had been part of him that had sensed the darkness under the exquisitely poised exterior, the danger that lurked beneath sharp collars and keen gaze and quiet hands? Surely there had been something that had been trying to warn him to stay away, something telling him that it was the Ripper he was seeing beneath that polished mask, and that seduction by the Ripper and seduction by Hannibal were one and the same?

But then again, perhaps that had been the very thing that had drawn him in, and in his interest, he’d ignored it. He’d given up safety and comfort for the thrill of the chase, and that was what his relationship with the Ripper had been, after all; chasing each other in circles, giving each other glimpses into each other’s minds, until they’d finally revealed themselves to each other. Will knew that he may have claimed the Ripper tonight, but the Ripper still thought he’d won.

For a brief moment, Will thought that he would be okay with that. But if he truly acquiesced, if he _submitted_ as Hannibal wanted him to in the end, what was the cost that would come with that? The Ripper had already taken so much from him, and Will knew that he would take more, and more, and more, until Will was wholly and completely his.

Will also knew that it wouldn’t be out of malice. It _hadn’t_ been out of malice. The Ripper wouldn’t hurt an equal, and hurting Will would never have been Hannibal’s primary intention. But in the end, even though Hannibal hadn’t tried to hurt him, he’d been the Ripper’s prize, and he’d gotten hurt in the process anyway.

Will felt a thin thread of amusement wind its way through his thoughts. Jack had warned him. Jack had been right all along.

Oh, how he’d laugh if he ever found out.

Hannibal stood; a fluid, smooth motion. A silent motion. It drew Will back to the present. Hannibal walked to where his clothes lay pooled on the floor, began putting them on. Reassembling himself in satin and silk and cotton. Slipping the mask back over his face. Will watched him openly, unashamed to let his eyes wander. There was nothing here that he hadn’t already seen, no part of Hannibal that he didn’t already know and understand.

Perhaps understanding was not becoming, but Will could have become the Ripper, if he’d wished.

When Hannibal was fully clothed again, he turned to face Will. For a moment, both of them stood in silence.

Will cleared his throat. “I should go,” he said finally.

Hannibal inclined his chin. Normally at this time, he’d make a quick, quiet remark about seeing Will next week, at the same time and place. But this time he said nothing, and Will didn’t offer. Their routine had been broken now, the illusion shattered; if Will came back to talk, it would be as Will Graham and the Chesapeake Ripper.

The Ripper killed again overnight, as Will had suspected he might; consensual sex could very easily have been seen as a move towards true acceptance, after all, and acceptance was something that the Ripper would never let go unannounced. The bodies—there were two, Jack informed him—were located in a gallery of an art museum that had been undergoing renovation and was closed off to the public and it had been found in the early hours of the morning by a custodian. There had been no gift this time; nothing left in his house by the Wendigo or the Ripper that could have come from the kill.

Jack was already on the scene by the time Will arrived; he’d expected that.

What he didn’t expect was to also see Hannibal Lecter.

Will stopped. “What’s he doing here?”

“Good morning to you too, Will,” Hannibal said. “Jack thought it would be a good idea for me to be present in the field.”

Will blinked, frowned. “For crime scene analysis? I don’t need to be monitored, Jack.”

“Hannibal disagrees,” Jack said.

“Of course he would,” Will muttered.

“Will,” Jack said, and there was a note of resignation in his voice. “The fact of the matter is, you killed someone in the field, and not long after that you nearly killed someone else.”

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Will said bluntly. And he hadn’t, not the second time.

Jack sighed, ran his hand over his face. “No, you didn’t pull the trigger. But you remember a few years ago we took you out of the field because you couldn’t pull the trigger, and now you’ve killed Nicholas Boyle, albeit in self-defense, and then you were put in a situation where you might have been forced to kill someone else if the rest of the team hadn’t shown on time. I can’t help but worry that it’s affected you. Hannibal is here to make sure you’re able to handle yourself in the field.” He paused. “I originally asked Alana, given that she’s been in the field with you before and Hannibal hasn’t. Until Nicholas Boyle, anyway. But Hannibal voted against it.”

For a moment, a chord of panic ran through Will’s body. Jealousy on the Ripper’s part meant that someone was going to get hurt; if Hannibal were jealous of the attention Alana was getting, of the time she was getting with Will, there was no stopping him from hurting her too.

But then he realized that killing Alana wouldn’t be worth it to him. Not here, not now, when the Ripper was so optimistic of Will’s acceptance. To the Ripper, Alana was no threat. She was inconsequential.

Hannibal caught Will’s gaze over Jack’s shoulder, gave him the smallest of nods, and Will’s shoulders relaxed.

Alana was fine. Hannibal hadn’t hurt her.

“Fine,” Will said brusquely. “He can stay. But he’s not going to see anything. I’m fine.” Almost as if to prove it, he took a step towards the bodies, taking in everything, circling it until he’d seen it from every angle. He returned to where he’d started, closed his eyes, let his imagination sweep over him.

The display was detailed as always, but despite that, the process was brief. There hadn’t been much to imagine this time; the Ripper had spoken plainly, clearly. He doubted Jack actually needed him to deduce the Ripper’s meaning here; he was just streamlining the process. Jack would have figured out everything on his own in the end.

He opened his eyes.

“What do you see?” Jack asked, like he always did after Will had gone through his process of looking into the killer’s mind, figuring out the killer’s motives.

“It’s a flirtation,” Will said flatly.

“I gathered that much,” Jack mused, nodding at the penises of the victims very obviously on display and very close together. The bodies of the victims were held up with thin metal cables, positioned in a careful dance so that they wove in and out of each other, very nearly but not actually touching. They were completely nude and, other than a few specific elements central to the message the Ripper was trying to send, completely untouched.

“It’s blatantly erotic,” Will continued, and he could see the twinkle of amusement in Hannibal’s eyes. “It’s unusual for him to kill two people at once, but it was necessary for this display; two becoming one. The ribcages broken and bent to support the strips of skin removed from the back—they’re forming wings. One pair is spread out and above, the other more folded in. Submissive. The heart of the submissive figure has been removed, placed between the hands of the dominant, and the flesh of heart and hand has been melted together, making the statement permanent.” He swallowed, tried not to blush. The Ripper had submitted to him last night, after all; there was no question which body represented him, which body represented Hannibal.

“So you’re convinced this is the work of the Ripper,” Jack said.

“Yes.” There was no question about it.

“Despite the lack of missing organs?”

“It’s him.” Will looked at the heart, half-melted in the leading man’s hands. “The heart is what he would have taken if the message hadn’t been so important to him. It’s about unity; it’s about being whole. The Ripper’s loss of a heart takes second stage when it comes to trying to talk to me. It could even symbolize his fantasy that I’ll join him, and that _I_ will soon be taking the organs with him.”

Jack smirked. “And his fantasy that you’ll dominate him, apparently.”

Will cleared his throat, ignored the laughter in Hannibal’s eyes at his blush. “Apparently.”

“Hm. Not very subtle this time, is he?” Jack asked dryly, and Will caught the smile that flickered briefly across Hannibal’s face.

Will huffed a laugh. “No. But I don’t think this was meant to be subtle. This was… _fun_. A boldly hopeful, not-yet-certain flirtation, but still fun. He’s optimistic. He’s _teasing_.”

Jack frowned. “So what’s put him in such a good mood, and how do we stop it?”

Will shrugged. “We stop him by catching him. As for his mood…I don’t know, my instability, maybe? The fact that going after Abigail got me to do what he wanted me to do?”

“Kill someone, you mean,” Jack said.

“Yes.”

“But Hannibal told me you did it out of self-defense. It wasn’t voluntary,” Jack said.

“Even if it was out of necessity, the Ripper would feel gratification that he was able to elicit some type of response to his action where before there had been indifference,” Hannibal said, and Jack turned to face him. “Will may not have killed Nicholas Boyle out of desire or true acceptance of the Ripper, but he went to protect Abigail and ultimately, he did kill. That is a reaction. That, to the Ripper, is a step in the right direction.” He smiled faintly. “Much like how a troubled student would cause trouble in class, if only to earn any kind of attention at all from his classmates or teacher.”

“And he killed now to show his hope that I’ll continue to react, or that I’ll even take the next step and reciprocate,” Will said, biting down the urge to look at Hannibal and tell him that no, Hannibal was wrong, the _Ripper_ was wrong; there was no step in the right direction. Killing for Abigail was not indication that he was ready to accept what the Ripper wanted for him. _Fucking_ the Ripper was not indication that he was ready to accept what the Ripper wanted for him.

“And the dance?” Jack asked. “Because they’re obviously supposed to be dancing, yes?”

Will nodded once. “Yes. But it’s not just dance, it’s ballet. It’s high art; that’s how he sees his murders, that’s how he sees courtship. The bodies, so close together but not yet touching; he sees me, he sees himself. He sees us as the same, or at least having the potential to be the same, but he acknowledges that we aren’t there yet.” He paused. “But at the same time, he’s not disrespecting the idea of individuality. He’s not saying that we’re _blending_ as we become one. On the contrary, he’s glorifying it, this idea that two different entities can combine to become a single. The sun and the moon come together to form an eclipse, after all; if I am the sun and he is the moon, the eclipse is our joining.”

Jack was silent for a while, and he looked troubled when he spoke. “None of us have mentioned the elephant in the room yet, so I’m going to say it: I never released the information that you were the one who killed Nicholas Boyle. I also never released the information regarding what happened with his body. Not even to the rest of the team. And yet,” he continued, gesturing at the bodies, “look at it. It’s obvious.”

“There was no way the Ripper should have known that Nicholas Boyle was killed by having his chest torn open and his sternum split in half,” Hannibal said. “And yet, here we are, with two bodies displayed with their chests torn open and their sternums split in half.”

Two different kills, done the same way, and only three people in the world knew about the first by the time the second was done: Jack, Will, and Hannibal. Of course Jack wasn’t the killer, leaving only two other options.

Will felt a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. For all that he thought the Ripper was capable of, implicating Hannibal wasn’t something he would have expected.

Implicating Will, on the other hand…

Still, there was an easy way out of this one. There was no proof that could frame him, nothing that could cast guilt on him other than coincidence and speculation. And in the end, he was innocent of these murders.

The Ripper was still toying with him. Probing his mind, seeing how far he could go. This was all just out of curiosity; this was all still just for _fun_. And he wanted Will to have fun, too; he was bringing Will to his side of the game.

Jack looked at him. “Will?”

“The Ripper knew me well enough to know that I would take the bait if it were Abigail,” Will said. “We already said we wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who gave Freddie Lounds the information to write the article. Given that, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nicholas Boyle turned up dead on the news and the Ripper was able to surmise that I’d been the one to do it, then went looking for the body.” He looked at Hannibal. “Or maybe he didn’t even need to look for it; he might have even been watching from afar as it happened. He might have even seen everything. He _wanted_ all of this to happen; he must have had a way to observe it when it did.”

Jack shook his head, frowned. “It’s a possibility. He obviously saw Boyle’s body at some point, or at least was told by someone who knew what was done to it, but although we need to face the facts, I don’t want to implicate anyone on the team.” He looked at Will. “Because there is always the possibility that the same person killed these two men as killed Nicholas Boyle. Which is absurd, of course,” he said, and his tone was light, but his eyes were hard.

Will met his gaze evenly. “Or that the person who killed these two men was also present at Nicholas Boyle’s death,” he said. “But that would be implicating Hannibal, which is equally as absurd.”

They watched each other for a moment, and then Jack laughed, shook his head. “Yeah. Absurd. Alright, this leaves your suggestion, that he was somehow watching you kill Boyle from a remote location. My gut tells me it’s unlikely, but my head tells me it’s not entirely impossible; we had a similar situation with Francis Dolarhyde some time ago after all. Staked out a spot and watched a drop location from a while off. Lost a few agents in the process.” He paused. “If the Ripper was trying to be cautious, he might have done something similar.”

“He’d only have come to see me kill Nicholas Boyle in person if he were reckless,” Will said.

“In any other case, I’d say reckless is good,” Jack said. “I’d say reckless means mistakes.”

“But not to him.”

“No,” Jack agreed. “Not to him.”

“You’re not going to catch him, Jack,” Will said. The words tasted bitter in his mouth and were made all the more bitter by the sweet amusement in Hannibal’s face. “He’s not going to be caught unless he wants to be. You’d know that from over a decade of experience with him; he doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Then we need to make him _want_ to be caught,” Jack said.

Will huffed a laugh, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well isn’t that the hardest part? Getting a fish to bite when it’s not hungry.” He glanced at Jack. “I’m a good fisherman, but the Ripper is a smart fish. We’ll need to find something that would make him bite no matter what. Something that will bring him out despite everything telling him not to.”

Jack frowned. “We’d need to offer him something irresistible.”

“And then we need to be prepared to do whatever it takes to catch him when it hooks.”

“Mm.” Jack paused, eyed the display in front of them. “Do you think…what if you appeared to reciprocate in order to draw him in?”

“Use the possibility of acceptance as bait,” Will said.

“Exactly.”

A small smile curved the corners of Will’s mouth. Acceptance was what the Ripper wanted most, after all, even more than what he believed he’d already gotten. “I suppose I could,” he said. He looked over at Hannibal, saw amusement still twinkling in his dark eyes. He held the other man’s gaze evenly, knew the mutual understanding that passed between them. “I suppose I could,” he said again. “And maybe I already have.”

Hannibal echoed Will’s smile; it spread itself across his face like a knife wound.

“I trust that in your ‘possibility of acceptance’ you’re keeping things legal,” Jack said darkly, and Will thought of the man he’d killed for standing over Abigail’s body—no, not a man; a boy. A boy he’d killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A boy he’d killed for Hannibal’s crime. A boy he’d killed for the Ripper.

None of it mattered. The boy was dead. Will barely even remembered his name was Nicholas Boyle, and he cared even less. Will’s hands were bloody, and he hated the Ripper but he wanted to paint Hannibal’s body with it and lick it off his skin before it dripped.

“You’ll have no problem spinning it as legal,” Will promised. He and Hannibal weren’t officially patient and therapist, after all, and Hannibal was the serial killer, not him. Will was hardly to blame if Hannibal was the one who initiated contact.

“You said ‘spinning it as legal,’” Jack said. He spoke slowly, deliberately. “This implies that what you did was not, in fact, technically legal.”

“I don’t think it was _illegal_ ,” Will said with a faint smile. “Frowned upon by typical societal standards, maybe, but nothing in the law specifically against it.” He paused. “I didn’t kill anyone else, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Not literally, at least; _la petite mort_ hardly landed you in a morgue unless you had a heart condition.

“No,” Jack said. “No, it wasn’t.” Jack held Will’s gaze for a long moment, and Jack was the first one to break it. “I don’t like that you went through with something without letting me know,” he said finally. “But I trust that you understand this guy, and I’ll trust your judgment. I’ll trust that killing Nicholas Boyle was nothing more than an accident brought on by your illness and his own recklessness. I’ll believe that. Just don’t get reckless yourself with what you do to draw him in.” There was a beat of silence, and Will understood; this wasn’t about the objective legality of the act, it was about who Will told about it.

Because the court wasn’t interested in _why_ things happened, and it was only interested in _how_ , insofar as it related to the evidence and the obtaining of that evidence. If the Ripper was lured in, any evidence obtained from the events that followed could be used to implicate him in front of a jury, provided it had been left behind through voluntary action. As long as there was nothing suspicious about the evidence itself, there would be no need to ask questions about what Will had done to manipulate the Ripper into leaving it.

Catching the Ripper was Jack’s endgame. He would be willing to do anything to reach it.

The phone in Jack’s pocket buzzed; he pulled it out, checked the screen, sighed. “I’ve got to take this call, but I’ll trust that you know what you’re doing and that you don’t need my supervision. The rest of the team will be here in a few minutes to finish processing the scene and take everything back to the lab.” He pressed the green button to answer the call, headed out into a side corridor. “Hello? Yes, I got your message…”

The last echoes of Jack’s footsteps faded. Will heard Hannibal walk up behind him, let the other man approach without turning to face him. They were alone now, Will Graham and the Ripper he had caught, and there was an ache in Will’s chest.

Hannibal’s hands slipped around to his waist, palms warm and gentle and comforting. Familiar already in a way that they shouldn’t have been. He felt Hannibal’s thumbs edge under his belt, fingers tugging at his hips, and he let himself be moved. He could feel the Ripper’s hope in Hannibal’s touch, the yearning for understanding and reciprocation, and he let Hannibal pull him in closer until they were pressed flush against each other, Hannibal’s heat against the line of Will’s back.

Hannibal’s left hand slipped up to Will’s neck and Will shivered, feeling the light touch of fingers along the throbbing rush of his blood, the rough stubble dotting his jaw. He felt the coolness of Hannibal’s breath on his neck a moment before lips met skin; he tilted his head, exposed more of himself for Hannibal to kiss, let Hannibal nibble and suck and lick the paleness of him as the hand snuck around to his throat, fingers clasping gently but firmly and holding him still while lips and teeth and tongue left constellations of red in their wake.

Will’s lips parted and Hannibal’s name slipped out on a breath. Will heard the other man let out a soft noise in response; not quite a growl, more than a hum. An aroused noise. A pleased noise. He felt Hannibal’s hips push against him and reached back to pull Hannibal closer, wanting to feel him again, wanting to know him again—

Will blinked, swallowed, recognized the harshness of his breath. He looked around sharply; Jack was gone, Hannibal was still several feet away. Watching him. Listening. Observing.

Will had no doubt that Hannibal was aware of what had just happened.

“It’s not what you think,” Will began.

“It doesn’t matter whether it is or not,” Hannibal replied. “You just have to decide if it’s what you want for yourself.”

 _It._ What was _it_? Physical closeness with Hannibal, the Chesapeake Ripper? _Acceptance_ of the Ripper? A fate that lay with Hannibal, or a fate of chasing after him, the FBI hot on their heels still convinced that Will was theirs?

Either way, when the excess was burnt away, what remained of the dichotomy was always the same: Hannibal, or not-Hannibal. And the thing at question, the thing they would always ask if he wanted, was always Hannibal.

Will’s lips twitched. “Giving me agency here, are you?”

“It’s your mind,” Hannibal said.

Will huffed a laugh, refused to look at Hannibal. “My mind. That’s not exactly something I can rely on, is it? For all I know, this isn’t real either.”

Hannibal tilted his head; Will caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. “The Ripper only takes intact organs. You yourself concluded that. You also concluded that the Ripper desires you for your mind. Therefore, unless you want to contradict yourself or amend one of those two statements, you must accept that your mind is intact.”

“Except for the encephalitis, apparently,” Will mumbled.

“Perhaps the Ripper is willing to overlook minor abnormalities in order to obtain access to a greater virtue.”

Will snorted. “Yeah, to manipulate me.”

Hannibal seemed amused. “The Ripper seeks to manipulate you just as you seek to manipulate the Ripper. It’s a mutual fascination.”

“Mutual, but not equal. I’ve got to convince the FBI he doesn’t know he’s being manipulated.”

“Yes, I suppose that is one hurdle the Ripper doesn’t have to cross.”

Will hmphed. It was true; everyone knew the Ripper was trying to manipulate people. Jack knew Will was trying to manipulate the Ripper, and the Ripper knew Will was trying to manipulate the Ripper, but Will had to somehow convince Jack that the Ripper didn’t know, and Will had to find a way to keep the bait interesting enough that the Ripper would take it and hold onto it even knowing what it was.

“I am the bait. Everyone knows that,” Will said. “The very fact that I haven’t responded in absolute affirmation or rejection is enough to keep drawing the Ripper in. He hasn’t gotten an absolute answer; therefore, there is still hope. While he still has hope, he will remain interested. If he’s interested enough, if he’s hopeful enough, he will respond to the bait.”

“You are the bait, yes, but the Ripper has already responded,” Hannibal said quietly. He paused. “But I suppose you knew that already.”

“Yes, I think that would have been hard to miss,” Will said wryly. And then he was angry again, angry at the fragile tenderness in Hannibal’s voice, at the aching chasms of emotion that lay just barely hidden behind the delicate dark veil of his eyes. He was angry that this care, this fascination, this _love_ , had been able to take away something so precious to him—Abigail Hobbs, his hope, a _daughter_ —and fake regret. He was angry that this love had betrayed and then sought to claim without apology, as if it couldn’t understand the severity of what it had done or that it understood the severity but wanted forgiveness nonetheless.

The Ripper might love, but it wasn’t Will’s kind of love. It wasn’t the kind of love that Will wanted or needed or deserved. It wasn’t the kind of love that could replace what it had taken.

There it was, then. There _it_ was. The dichotomy; the choice. The decision he had to make.

Will could do everything for Jack, or he could turn his face from it, ignore everything that had happened, ignore the Ripper. He could keep tearing at old wounds and gouge open a darkness inside of him that would never close again, or he could heal and move on. He could make his quiet exit and let Jack and the Ripper chase each other in circles for eternity.

It seemed easy, when he put it that way.

Will turned to face Hannibal, tightened his jaw at the melted chocolate of the other man’s eyes. “Last night meant nothing,” he said, and then, ignoring the confusion and surprise that flitted across the other man’s face, turned around and walked away.


	8. Chapter 8

LATE JULY

Will didn’t go back to therapy. He wasn’t sure if Hannibal had told Jack about this particular recent development, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. They saw each other occasionally at HQ over the next few weeks; Will wasn’t sure what he was hoping to accomplish with his cold shoulder, and Hannibal’s expressions remained unreadable, but Will was still angry and thought he might always be, and it was easier to ignore Hannibal because it made it easier not to look him in the eye and spit in his face that he was wrong, that there had been no acceptance, that Will wanted nothing more to do with him.

Will told himself he didn’t miss him. He told himself not to think of him.

But Will dreamt of him anyway. He dreamt of killing Hannibal Lecter, because the nightmares were back, and sometimes they were hallucinations, and consciousness would flood back to him and he’d find himself kneeling on the ground with his hands shaking and his breath coming in hyperventilating gasps, his shirt soaked in sweat and his heart feeling like it might give out, only this time there was no Hannibal beside him, no Hannibal to wrap his arms around him and hold him steady and tell him things would be alright.

Because they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t be alright, and it was because of Hannibal.

And sometimes when he dreamed it was Hannibal who came to him, laying kisses on his neck and catching his gasping breaths with his lips, murmuring in that calm, sweet voice that he loved him, that Will was his dragonfly, that they could be beautiful. Sometimes it was Hannibal pushing into his body, hands tender and loving and gentle, and sometimes it was harsh and hot and it hurt and his fingers were curled around Will’s throat and he woke himself gasping for breath that he couldn’t draw.

The FBI got more cases. None of them were the Ripper’s, but Will looked at them and he couldn’t stop thinking about the Ripper, thinking about what the Ripper would have done differently, how much more effectively the Ripper would have been able to convey his meaning, his beauty.

He was becoming obsessed.

“I can’t do this,” he told the Wendigo. It had already been waiting for him by the time he stumbled into the clearing, and it watched him impassively as he sank to his knees. It had rained a few days ago and the ground was still damp; despite the summer heat, he felt the chill seep into his bones.

“I can’t…I can’t keep doing this,” he said again, and his throat was dry. “It’s fucking with my head, I go to sleep and I don’t know what my dreams will bring, I wake and I don’t know what I’m going to see—”

He’d killed the Wendigo. He’d run at it with a knife and it let him sink the blade deep into its chest or slice open its throat; he’d shot it with his FBI pistol and then again with his hunting rifle; he’d dragged it out into the river and wrapped fishing line around its neck until it couldn’t breathe and he’d tossed the body into the tumbling water. Every time, just after he’d felt it die, reality would rush back to him and he’d blink and he’d be back at the clearing, panting, shaking, and the Wendigo would be watching him. It had spoken to him the first time he’d come back since he realized Hannibal was the Ripper; real words, rather than just emotions, and since then it had been able to worm its way into his thoughts even when they were still a few meters apart.

There was no doubt it knew when it had hallucinated killing it. And yet, here it was, still waiting for him whenever he came, still trusting him.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” he whispered. The Ripper was melding into him, becoming him, and he was finding it harder and harder to separate himself from him. One day, if he stepped too far over the line, he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back, and he and the Ripper would become one, and Will would lose himself.

He heard the Wendigo in his head. _Tell Jack._

Will huffed a laugh, rocked back on his heels. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah, I think so too.”

He told Jack the next day.

“I can’t force you to consult on cases if you don’t want to. You know that,” Jack said. “But I hope you also know how important you’ve been in helping us understand them.”

“At the expense of my own sanity?” Will asked.

Jack sighed. “Hannibal never said—”

“I don’t care what he said or not. Hannibal doesn’t know me as well as I know myself,” Will interrupted.

“True, but he’s been your acting psychiatrist for the past year and he has the medical background to evaluate the situation.”

“I don’t think he could tell you any better than I could what I need,” Will said. “And I need…I need a break. From the Ripper. I need time to get him out of my head, let myself think clearly again.”

“Are you not?”

“No,” Will said bluntly.

Jack paused. “What exactly is it that you want?”

Will swallowed, avoided his gaze. “I want to turn my back on the Ripper. I don’t want to think about him again.”

Jack was silent for a long time. “Alright,” he said finally. “I can’t promise I won’t call if something else comes up. But I won’t expect you to be there.”

And he didn’t.

The next Ripper case came up in early September. Jack called him, told him that they suspected the Ripper; it was a woman this time, dressed in a white gown, her lips and vocal cords removed, her body held up with various forms of pothos vines and flowers placed over her body in various places corresponding to the Wound Man—another Ripper victim from years ago. But he didn’t directly ask for Will to be there; he just told Will where it was and when the team was headed there, if Will was interested.

Will was, but he didn’t go. It was another flirtation, of course; the white gown was a wedding dress, the removal of the lips and vocal cords clearly derision at how unnecessary it was to vocalize dedication, the flowers recalling all the ways and places Hannibal had touched him.

Will didn’t want it.

Jack called again a month later. It was a man this time, folded up in a chapel with wings sprouting from his shoulders, and there was something urgent in his voice telling him that something had changed; the Ripper wasn’t exalting, not anymore. Whatever message Will had sent him, he’d gotten it, and he’d responded.

It was in a chapel, about an hour from Will’s house. It was late morning when he arrived; his heart thudded dully in his chest as he stepped out of his car and walked through the heavy oak doors.

There was a cold stone settling deep in Will’s gut as he saw the display, on the floor in front of the altar, presented in front of the entire ghostly congregation like testimony.

It was for him, again, as always. It was the Ripper, putting his heart out for Will to see. More specifically, it was the Ripper turning some poor soul’s body into a representation of his heart. It had been given to him not so long ago, ripped out of that beautiful dancer’s chest and welded to Will’s hands, and here the Ripper was telling him that he’d held it, and he’d broken it.

He stepped around it, felt the breath leave his body in a huff when he rounded it and saw the undersides of the wings. From behind, they had been mostly black like the wings of a black swan, but from below, they were painted a mottled white and black and tawny, in an unmistakable perfect replication of the Wendigo’s.

A few feet away, on the other side of the winged human heart, Will saw Hannibal smile.

Will drew a slow breath, forced his wild thoughts to calm, forced himself to let the Ripper back in his mind from where he’d been barricaded out for weeks.

It was easier than he thought it would be.

“Will?” Jack asked quietly.

“It’s the Ripper,” Will said.

“I figured as much,” Jack said. “It’s his broken heart; that’s easy enough for anyone to see. But what else?”

Will raised an eyebrow. “Hannibal say you could trust my judgment?”

“That’s not what this is about. I worry. We all do. He was there to make sure you were safe the first time, just as he has been, just as he is now.”

“For the crime scene, or from my own mind?” It came out more aggressive than he’d intended; there was bitterness at Hannibal, for being there undoubtedly to see what Will would do, to see how Will would interpret the tableaus he’d so carefully put together for him. No doubt Hannibal wanted to see the subtle tones that would indicate approval or rejection, to watch Will’s reaction as he took in what the Ripper had created for him—it was the same excitement as a boy giving a gift to his lover and watching its unwrapping in front of him, eager to see what the reception would be.

“Will,” Jack said, and it was slightly exasperated. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “We both know you have encephalitis. We both know that it’s aggravated by stress. You can’t deny that what you’ve been through has been stressful.” He paused. “In fact, Alana never hesitates to remind me of that as well as my own complicity in manipulating you into these situations.”

Will smiled dryly. “Manipulating me.”

Jack sighed. “That’s what she calls it, yes.”

“And what does Hannibal say about me?” Will’s voice was biting and he didn’t look at Hannibal as he spoke.

“He says to listen to you. He says to trust that you’ll express when you feel like you’re being pushed too far.” Jack chuckled. “He also said that he’s afraid that if it does go too far, it’ll be my fault because I won’t listen to you.”

“He trusts my judgment, you mean,” Will said. “At least when it comes to determining how much of this I can handle.”

“Yes.”

“So he’s here to check up on the physical side of my brain’s health,” Will said.

“To put it bluntly, he’s here in case you have an episode. He told me to be careful, but that even if you don’t want to be here, you’re still technically fit to be in the field. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you here, knowing you didn’t want to be.”

“Is that the truth?” Will asked quietly, and he held Jack’s gaze. “Would you really have let me go if I was unfit, or would you have called me back anyway? Would you have risked my sanity if it brought you one step closer to catching the Ripper?”

“I think you want to catch him as much as I do,” Jack said evenly.

There was a moment of silence. It was true, of course; Jack was obsessed with catching the Ripper. He had every right to be, after all; the Ripper had eluded him for years, and now he was killing again, and Jack wanted him behind bars before he could kill anyone else. And Will…

Well, he was back, wasn’t he? After he’d turned away the last time?

“I want him to be known,” Will said simply, ignoring Hannibal’s small smile.

“And you know him better than anyone,” Jack said.

A small smile spread itself across Will’s face. Better than anyone, except, of course, the Ripper himself, who stood but a few feet away listening to their conversation with undoubtedly no small amount of amusement.

“You know him,” Jack repeated, and he gestured at the display. “So show him to me.”

Will took a step forward, looked more closely at the display. Some things were immediately noticeable; there was no visible blood despite the mutilation, and the arrangement was painstakingly clean, almost to the point of sculpture. Even the wings had been blended seamlessly into skin. The cause of death wasn’t immediately clear; the arrangement could have easily concealed a deadly wound on the front of the torso, hidden by twisted limbs, or the victim could have been killed by non-penetrative force or by drug.

But those were things Jack and the rest of the team could have seen on their own. The others were there to process the crime scene, after all; they were there to collect evidence, to find the science behind the cause and time of death. Will was there to see into the killer’s mind.

It was the most elaborate piece the Ripper had ever created for him, but he could see layers and layers deep down into it, double entendres and multiple meanings and metaphor upon metaphor upon metaphor. It was a human body, of course, broken and bent and folded in on itself, contorted almost out of recognition of what it originally was and into something that was immediately recognizable for what it had become. As he stood there, Jack and Hannibal faded away from the periphery, the surroundings crumbled into dust until he was left standing there with the art. It unfolded itself, unraveling from perfect seams, until the broken heart came apart and it stood as a person again.

From there, it was easy. Looking into the Ripper’s mind and seeing the past was just as easy as looking into his own memory. The details of who the man was, where he had come from, came just as easily, but those weren’t important to the message of the display, not this time. He searched the rooms of the Ripper’s mind, pulled out what was significant, spoke of what was necessary.

“He’s stained the skin black, indicating that it’s a type of black bird and not just symbolism with black feathers,” Will said. “Black swan, I’d say, rather than a raven or crow, considering the white primary feathers and the way he’s elongated the neck. He’s probably used silver nitrate on the skin. It stains but is also known for its medicinal properties; this isn’t an insult. He’s trying to heal the wounds he’s inflicted, using this body as a metaphor.” Will paused. “It’s shaped as a heart, but it doubles as a black swan. They’re monogamous birds, and both parents care for the young. He’s showing his dedication.”

“Dedication I can see,” Jack said. “What about healing? What is he trying to heal?”

A wry smile curved Will’s mouth. “He’s apologizing for Abigail.”

“Ah.” Jack was quiet for a few moments. “So is this broken heart yours or his?”

“Mine or his?” Will laughed quietly. “Both, I think. He acknowledges what Abigail’s death has done to me. He hasn’t fixed it; he understands that he can’t fix it. The silver nitrate symbolizes the bird, but it’s also his attempt at stopping the bleeding, at preventing infection. He’s begging me not to hate him, hoping I can forgive. But it’s his heart, too. His heart has been broken by my rejection.” He walked around to the front, gestured at the underside. “The patterns resemble those of an osprey. It’s a smaller and less powerful bird than the eagle; it’s the Ripper deferring to me and what I want the same way an osprey must relinquish its catch if an eagle sets its eyes on it. The acceptance and forgiveness he’s asking for—he knows it’s me that has to give it, and it’s not something he can take. He can’t claim it without my offering.”

“He’s deferring, but in a non-sexual way this time,” Jack said.

“Yes,” Will agreed.

Jack frowned, paused. “And the organ that’s missing?”

Will swallowed, calmed the sudden racing of his heart. “The brain,” he said. “He’ll have removed the brain. He’s acknowledging that he’s not thinking; this isn’t logical. His feelings for me have made him do things that are irrational.”

“Any other irrational man would make mistakes,” Jack said. “And we’ll look for one, but I don’t think we can count on a mistake here.”

“No,” Will agreed.

There was a brief silence. Will looked at the display; it was beautifully and carefully crafted, encompassing the same tenderness Will had felt while he trailed a light hand over Hannibal’s body that morning not so long ago, the same aching Will had felt in his chest as he pushed into Hannibal’s body with what he’d convinced himself was anything other than love. There was pleading, there was deferral, there was longing; Will refused to be moved by it.

“You said he’s heartbroken by your rejection,” Jack said after a pause. “The last tableau was blatant optimism, so why is the Ripper giving us his broken heart now in response to you? Is there anything you’ve done that he might have taken as rejection? Anything that might even have made him think that his last… _gift_ …was too forward? Crass, even?”

Will tightened his jaw. He remembered slipping into Hannibal’s heat, meeting and shuddering as one as Hannibal’s skin reddened and purpled under his hands. He remembered the almost desperate, gasping sounds he’d torn from Hannibal’s throat and the way his name sounded carried on spent breath between Hannibal’s lips; he remembered their bodies arching together in a divine dance and the sparkle of stars in Hannibal’s dark eyes until the end, until Will had looked him in the face and told him that it had meant nothing.

That had been rejection, and it had been unmistakable. And he’d tried to distance himself after that, stay away from Hannibal and stay away from cases, to the point where he’d told Jack that he didn’t want to consult on Ripper cases anymore. That was why the Ripper was here now, begging him to come back, begging him to make the choice to keep the Ripper in his life instead of the Ripper forcing his presence on him.

It was almost considerate.

“I…don’t know,” Will said finally. “I don’t know what he could’ve taken as rejection or offense, I wasn’t intentionally trying to show him anything that could lead to that.” The lie came more easily than he thought it would.

“And unintentionally?” Jack asked. There was almost a note of accusation in his voice; Will had promised reciprocation, after all, and yet here was the Ripper’s latest victim, blatantly telling them all that the opposite had happened. “Freddie Lounds snooped,” Jack said after a while. “Pictures all over Tattlecrime. Anyone who was interested would be able to read that you didn’t seem to have been consulting on the last case. My bet is that the Ripper would see that as rejection.”

“Could be,” Will admitted. “It could also be the fact that I haven’t killed and displayed anyone yet. He feels increasing hopelessness that I’ll ever be what he wants me to be.”

“He wants more,” Hannibal said quietly, and it was the first time he’d spoken since they’d all gotten there.

A faint, humorless smile turned Will’s lips. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, that could be it too. He wanted to see my full transformation, which he believed had begun with the boy I killed.”

“Hence the dancers,” Jack said. “The reveling of acceptance, of metamorphosis.”

Will swallowed. “He was mistaken,” he said, and there was a slight shake to his voice. “Nothing was transformed there. No part of that act had anything to do with anything that he wants me to be. That was self-defense and nothing more.” He laughed bitterly. “He reveled in something that did not exist.”

He caught Hannibal’s eye briefly; there was a question in the dark gaze, asking if that’s really what he meant, if he really hadn’t begun his metamorphosis that day, or if he was only denying it so vehemently now out of anger.

But it was all out of anger, wasn’t it? He’d wanted to mutilate Nicholas Boyle’s body because of what he had done to Abigail, and he wanted to deny the Ripper what he wanted because of his complicity in Abigail’s fate. _That_ wasn’t the Ripper; the desire to destroy in order to create beauty wasn’t on its own the Ripper. Will was fueled by revenge; the Ripper was not. The Ripper was calculated and emotionless when it came to his work.

“He’s not going to accept rejection,” Jack said after a silence.

“No,” Will agreed. “But I can’t accept _him_. I’ve already tried to show him that; whether he saw through it or whether it wasn’t enough, the outcome was that he killed again.”

“And there’s nothing here that could lead you to him? Nothing that gives you enough insight into his mind that it could open up a new lead, give us a new perspective?”

Will shook his head. “I can understand him, yes, but I wouldn’t be able to know it was him standing in front of me until I talked to him, or at least saw him in person. We’ve compiled a list of profiles; we know he’ll be someone with medical expertise, someone highly intelligent, someone with an appreciation for the arts. Given the detail put into all the tableaus and the quality and diversity of materials that make them up, we’ve also said that he’s probably fairly wealthy and has enough time on his hands that he’s able to anonymously source and gather these materials. But you can’t identify poetry from a suspect list; you can’t see that kind of nuance without personal interaction. And our defining list isn’t narrow enough yet that we’d be able to bring anyone in to interview.”

Jack frowned, tilted his head. “What I don’t understand is that if he’s trying to get you to join him, he must be giving you a way to find him. If he’s looking for a partner, this isn’t the kind of stuff that you can do remotely. There has to be _something_ that could help us narrow it down.” He was pacing now, hands clasped behind his back. “We know that he was involved with Nicholas Boyle and Abigail’s deaths; we know that he was also involved with leading us to Garret Jacob Hobbs. Because of his knowledge of Hobbs, we know that he must have gone to Minnesota around the same time we did; by flight, most likely. He would have returned to the Chesapeake area by the time of Cates’s death. We know that he saw how Boyle died and thus was able to replicate it with the dancers—and he didn’t find out from Tattlecrime, because it wasn’t up there. We know that he’s been following us.”

There was a long pause, during which Jack stopped pacing. “And he knew how important Abigail was to you,” he said. “That’s why he went after her. To get a rise from you. Back with Eden Murphy, you said that the butterflies were used to convey the same message as what you’d told Abigail. We’re back at the same square as we were with the dancers; the common threads among all these events are you, me, and Hannibal.”

And then Will realized that this was the choice the Ripper had given him. The Wendigo’s wings were as good as confession. Hannibal was the only other person Will had ever told about the Wendigo, the only other person who would have any idea of what the Wendigo’s wings looked like.

It would be so easy to tell Jack. So easy to point it out and say _look, this is Hannibal, Hannibal is the only person other than me who knows this color pattern, he must have done this, Hannibal is the Chesapeake Ripper—_

But then, no, it wouldn’t be easy. He’d have to admit his hallucinations, the details of which no one would be able to prove, unless Hannibal had taken notes during his sessions. If he had, it might not be enough to implicate him, but it would be enough to give the FBI a lead, and once they started zoning in on Hannibal they would find other details that added up. His interaction with Abigail Hobbs, for instance. Flying to Minnesota with them during the Shrike cases. The knowledge of how Nicholas Boyle died and the skill to replicate it in the dancers.

But no, it wouldn’t be easy. It would mean admitting that he wasn’t fit to be in the field, and that in itself would complicate the process; there wasn’t a clear procedure to follow when it came to trusting the testimony of a man who couldn’t even be sure of his own reality.

And that was the question of his own sanity. He understood these kills just as well as the man who had done them, and he experienced hallucinations and loss of time. Cates had been found near his house, Murphy had been found with the butterfly metaphor he’d been talking to Abigail about, Blackwood had been found with fishing lures. This heart was painted with the colors of the hallucination only Will could see.

And Nicholas Boyle? If Will were to be framed as the Ripper—if Will _were_ the Ripper—that could easily be explained as him trying to pin the Ripper identity on someone else, with the dancers’ split ribs Will’s attempt at implicating Hannibal instead, pointing the clues away from himself.

But that wasn’t what happened. That couldn’t have been what happened, Will knew who the Ripper was and he knew it wasn’t him. His dreams of killing, his desire for revenge, those were just thoughts, things he’d dreamt up inside his head and nothing more. That was just Hannibal planting those ideas in his head with comforting words and gentle touches to reassure him that it was alright, that nothing was wrong with him. They weren’t his own.

Right?

Danger prickled at the back of his neck again. It told him that he wasn’t thinking clearly, that these fears weren’t his own, that this was the very manipulation Hannibal had warned him about so many months ago.

_“The Shrike can’t manipulate me. He’s sophisticated, but not to that extent.”_

_Hannibal looked amused. “I didn’t believe he could. But there may come a day when you encounter a killer who can. That is when I will worry for you.”_

He could implicate Hannibal, or he could implicate himself. Or perhaps they were one and the same; perhaps he’d gone too far already and he and the Ripper were already one.

So there was his second choice; to let the evidence go this time, to choose himself and the Chesapeake Ripper over the FBI.

He wasn’t afraid of imprisonment; he didn’t fear the death that might come at the end of it, should he be convicted and sentenced. And he knew that if he ended up behind bars, Hannibal would find a way to get him out; because that was the point, wasn’t it? For Will to be free to continue killing with the Ripper?

“Any evidence you think you find will likely be planted,” Hannibal said when Will didn’t speak. “I don’t think anyone can deny that the three of us are consistently caught in the middle of all the circumstances surrounding the Ripper’s kills, yet I don’t think any of us can say with any certainty that it’s more than coincidence, or more than the result of the Ripper following the object of his desire. Freddie Lounds got access to the previous Ripper kill, didn’t she? Enough to know that Will didn’t seem to be consulting on it, at least. Given that, it’s not unlikely that the Ripper would have the skill to obtain the same type of information. He may not have to rely on Tattlecrime for the latest FBI gossip.”

Jack was silent for a long moment. “I never thought the Ripper stood among us,” he said finally. “The question was whether or not there was information being withheld, or suspicions that haven’t been given voice to. You haven’t convinced me there aren’t.” He paused, looked at Will. “When we do catch the Ripper, if there’s evidence that you didn’t come forth with all that you knew, you know I could charge you with obstruction of justice.”

A small, wry smile crossed Will’s face. “Is that a threat, Jack?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of threatening my best profiler,” Jack said, returning the smile. “I just want reassurance that we’ve still got the same end goal in mind. I want to know that you’re still clear on the objective here.”

Will held his gaze evenly. “I’m clear,” he said.

Jack glanced at Hannibal, who nodded once.

“Alright,” Jack said after a long pause. “I’ll have the scene analyzed, send the body to the morgue. We’ll see what evidence we find, and we’ll figure out where to go from there.” His gaze flickered back to Will briefly. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll call the rest of the team in.”

“If it’s alright with you,” Hannibal said, “I’d like a few minutes with Will first.”

Jack hesitated, nodded. “Fine. Ten minutes and I’m sending them in.” He headed back out to where the rest of the team was no doubt waiting; the last of his steps faded, and the outer doors to the building clanged shut behind him a few moments later.

They were alone now. Will could see Hannibal out of the corner of his eye; standing still, calm, poised as ever, hands clasped behind his back.

He said the obvious. “He killed for me. Again.”

He heard Hannibal’s smile. “And you’re back. Again.”

Will tutted. “You first, Hannibal.”

Hannibal paused, and then acquiesced. “While the Ripper still has hope, he will remain interested,” Hannibal said, and Will’s jaw clenched at the sound of his own words coming out of Hannibal’s mouth.

“I took away that hope,” Will said tightly. “I said that night meant nothing. I walked away. I rejected him.”

“Yet you yearned for him,” Hannibal said quietly.

Will swallowed; it was true. He’d wanted the Ripper, again and again and again. It was like something out of his control. “I said the bait would work by keeping the Ripper interested,” Will said. “I said that as long as he had hope, as long as he was interested, he would take the bait.” His voice shook, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “The rejection was honest. It was to protect me, to keep him away from me. It was honest because I didn’t want to think about him anymore, and I tried to make myself stop thinking about him by walking away from everything.”

“You wanted—”

“He took my daughter from me,” Will said, and it was spat out. Angry; volatile, because he knew what Hannibal was going to say, and he knew it was true, and he wanted to hate it.

There was a silence.

“He regrets it,” Hannibal said softly, finally. “He regrets that he hurt you. Surely you see that?”

“I don’t doubt the sincerity of his emotion, only the judgment that led him to believe that was ever forgivable.”

“Is it not?”

“No.” It came out too quickly, too emotionally; Will took a shuddering breath, spoke again. “No, it’s not.”

“But you couldn’t help thinking about him, even then,” Hannibal murmured. “You know the rejection was more than just protecting yourself. You know that when fish learn what the bait truly is, when the truth outweighs the desire, they no longer bite. If they don’t bite, they don’t get caught.” There was a pause. “You know that rejection made the situation absolute, rendered the bait visibly ineffective. You may have rejected the Ripper to keep him away from you so you wouldn’t have to think about him again, but you also know that the rejection was also an attempt to protect him. You thought he might give up if he knew there was no chance.”

“And you…you rejected my rejection,” Will rasped. “You came back. You apologized.” He gestured vaguely at the heart. “And not just that, you _gave._ This…this is giving. This is revealing. This is holding something out as an offering.”

“Indeed,” Hannibal said, and Will could hear the slight smile in his voice. He paused. “They say it’s difficult to catch the same fish twice if it escapes the first time.”

“True.” Will glanced at him. “And yet here you are.”

“A clever fish will still bite if it’s desperate enough,” Hannibal said. “You said yourself; my feelings for you have made me do things that are illogical.”

Will swallowed. “Are you saying you’re desperate?”

“I’m saying that love can make people do things that otherwise seem counterproductive.”

 _Love_. He’d known it already, but it struck something in Will, hearing it said aloud. Hearing it confessed, when they both knew who each other were.

“Jack is suspicious,” Will said.

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed.

“He thinks…he doesn’t actually think that I killed this person. He doesn’t think that I’m the one behind this all.”

“No,” Hannibal said. “But he thinks you know who the Ripper is, and you’re not telling him. He…talked to me about you. Before you arrived. He told me that when the Ripper first began communicating with you, you said that the Ripper was looking for a partner in life, and that these kills were his attempt at showing you that you would be turned.”

“That I would fall,” Will rasped.

Hannibal inclined his chin. “Yes. He’s concerned that despite your efforts and despite your vigilance against manipulation, you have, in fact, been manipulated. He’s concerned that you are falling for the trap the Ripper has laid out for you.”

“And that’s the real reason he brought you here,” Will said wryly. “He wants you to watch me, to tell him that he’s wrong and that his bloodhound isn’t damaged. He wants you to tell him that I’m the same profiler I always was.”

“Are you?”

“We both know the answer to that, Hannibal. Let’s not insult anyone’s intelligence.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“I believe it’s my turn to ask the questions,” Hannibal said. “You walked away, Will. You turned your back on Jack; you turned your back on me. And yet here you are, come to heel when called.”

“I’m not Jack’s dog,” Will bit out. “Not anymore.”

“No,” Hannibal agreed. “But he was not the only one who called.”

Will flinched. The Ripper had also called, yes, and he was here, returned to the case when he had so adamantly walked away.

“Hungry dogs are never loyal,” Will said, and his voice shook slightly; it was an attempt to convince himself that he hadn’t returned for the Ripper, that he still had agency in his actions, that the Ripper’s whistle wasn’t irresistible. It was an attempt to convince himself that he could still return to Jack, that he could still leave Hannibal, that he wasn’t the butterfly he was always afraid he would turn out to be.

“But I keep you well fed,” Hannibal said with a slight smile, and Will knew he wasn’t talking about all the times he had cooked for him. The Ripper kept Will’s mind captive, trained his imagination, rewarded the command correctly executed.

Will clenched his jaw, looked away.

“Will,” Hannibal said quietly, and it wasn’t pleading, but it was a request. Asking for honesty in return for the honesty Hannibal had just shown him.

And it shouldn’t have been difficult. Hannibal had already said it, after all. _You yearned for him_.

Will swallowed. “I…I wanted to protect myself,” he said. “That was the truth I convinced myself of, at least. I told myself over and over again that was what it was; telling you that I’d had enough, that I was done. I told myself I wanted it to be over because I didn’t know what I wanted between you and Jack and I was tired of agonizing over it, fighting the two halves of myself. But…you’re right. I couldn’t stay away from—” He paused, swallowed again. Hannibal was silent; he was still waiting.

“I couldn’t stay away from you,” he finished quietly, and Hannibal’s eyes flickered.

“Obsession, addiction, are not the same as care,” Hannibal said after a brief silence; his voice echoed in the open space.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to care,” Will rasped. “I don’t know if I ever will be.”

Hannibal tilted his chin slightly. “I can only hope.” He nodded at the heart. “What do you think of this one?”

“I don’t want your apology,” Will said bluntly. Apologies are one step closer to harmony, one step closer to acceptance, one step closer to forgiveness.

“But you can’t deny that it is honest,” Hannibal said. He sounded amused. “No, Will, I mean the display itself. I’d like to know what you think of it objectively.”

“What, craving my validation now?” Will asked with a wry smile. “It’s beautiful as always,” he said anyway, and it was an honest answer. “But you know that, you just want to hear me say it.” He paused. “It’s richly metaphorical. Complexly layered, painstakingly put together but made to look effortless. It’s…poetry. Outwardly graceful and simple yet subtle in its inner intricacy. I feel like I understand it better every time I look, but there’s still always more to see.”

“Indeed, you missed something when you spoke to Jack,” Hannibal said with a small smile.

Will glanced at him briefly and then looked away. He didn’t speak.

“It’s about the wings,” Hannibal said, when Will didn’t answer. He took a step forward almost cautiously, questioningly. Testing Will’s boundaries.

Will let him. He couldn’t deny that he was curious. Indeed, it was strange he had missed something now when this all had so clearly been meant for him. He ran his eyes over the display again, looking at the feathers and how they spread out from the heart. They were meant to represent the Wendigo, surely? It was all meant to reveal to Will that he had given the Ripper his soul just as the Ripper had given Will his heart. Everything in the wings was perfectly replicated according to what Will had described; surely that was the Ripper showing Will how much he cared, how much attention he paid to what Will told him, how important it was to him that he was able to remember and understand? And the black swan and the osprey both represented fidelity and dedication, surely that was something the Ripper wanted to show him?

But there had to be something else, something else that should have been obvious and that he had somehow missed. He stepped forward, walked around the display, looked to the details where the answers always lay.

There.

Right at the base of the right wing. It was wax that joined the wings to the heart; just a drop, cooled and hardened between two feathers. Easy to miss, and even if he’d seen it, easy to dismiss as a mistake.

But the Ripper didn’t make mistakes.

Ah.

That was it then; wax hidden under feathers, and a message hidden in the wax itself. Once he’d seen it, he didn’t know how he ever could have missed it.

“Your wings are broken,” Will said quietly, and Hannibal’s silence was confirmation. He walked around the heart again, looked at it in this new light. “They look whole, but they’re effectively broken because they’re held together by wax. Wax is impractical. It’s too fragile, too soft. What’s held together now could fall apart just as easily. But that’s not it; the rest of this monument is talking to me, so this must be too. You’re telling me that it’s not just your wings that are clipped; it’s mine.”

Still, Hannibal was silent, but this silence was different; it told him that there was one more piece that Will hadn’t found yet. Will rifled through his memories, drew forward conversations that they’d had, things they’d discussed. Nothing there—nothing obvious, at least. But behind those words was Hannibal’s appreciation for art, his love for metaphor, his passion for legend.

He looked up, drew a sharp breath. Once again, it was in the details.

“Icarus,” he said. Represented beautifully in wax and by the osprey pattern of the Wendigo’s wings, a bird which two thousand years ago in Rome Pliny the Elder wrote was sent up to touch the sun.

Hannibal was across from him now, his heart, Will’s heart, _their_ heart, centered between them, and there was a wistful smile on his face. “Think about magnificent he could have been if he’d flown,” he said.

 _If he’d flown._ A beat of anger; Hannibal was still asking him, courting him, luring him, _apologizing_ to him as if it would make any difference. As if it would bring Abigail back. “Icarus didn’t get a second chance,” Will said sharply. “And I don’t need one.”

“Whether you need one or not is irrelevant once it’s been given to you.”

And then, as quickly as it had come, the anger faded. It was true, after all; Hannibal had been utterly, thoroughly rejected, but he’d found a way around it and here he was extending his heart again, holding it out for Will to take or break as he pleased. Giving Will a second chance even as he asked for his own, and it was Will’s choice again now, whether he wanted it or not. It was up to him to decide what to do.

A wry smile turned the corners of Will’s mouth. “You really are just that desperate.”

“Yes.”

“You’re desperate enough for me that when you saw my rejection, you were willing to drop your pride and your dignity to find a loophole through it and still come back. You were willing to _beg_.”

Hannibal swallowed, and his voice was barely audible when he replied. “Yes.”

“Hm. I think I like that,” Will murmured, and he saw the slight flush of Hannibal’s cheeks.

There was a moment of silence.

“Icarus flew, and he could have kissed Apollo,” Will said quietly. He paused. “I’ll admit, the thought of being able to touch a god and succeed is…tempting.”

Hannibal echoed his smile. “All Icarus wanted was freedom. Touching a god came second to that. What is so wrong with wanting to be free? And yet, his failure is what he is remembered for; he’s been turned into nothing more than a lesson. Imagine if he’d been given the chance to succeed, and what he would have been remembered for then instead.”

“He would have been remembered for glory,” Will murmured. “Soared into the history books of victory and triumph instead of struck down in tragedy.” He paused, looked back at the display. This was Hannibal showing Will how fragile his heart was, how easily broken that freedom could be if Will wanted to shatter it. He was showing Will that neither of them could fly, but that they could be magnificent if they did.

He was showing Will that they belonged together. Will’s freedom lay with Hannibal, and Hannibal’s with Will.

Will swallowed, felt a pang in his chest. “I don’t know if I should ever see you again,” he said quietly. Freedom was dangerous. Freedom was deadly. Freedom was where he could think about the Ripper again and understand him, and in understanding him, become him. Freedom was a place where he could forgive.

There were a few moments of silence. “I was at your mercy,” Hannibal said finally.

Will scoffed. “What, because I know who you are and could see your confession? That I could point it out to Jack? No, Hannibal, you weren’t. You knew I couldn’t accuse you now without implicating myself in the process. There was no way of telling them I knew it was you because of the feathers unless I revealed my own mental instability, and in revealing that instability I would render my own accusation worthless. This was a message for me, and me alone.”

“No, Will,” Hannibal said, and he sounded faintly amused. “I meant the last night.”

 _Oh_. Will’s cheeks colored. He remembered his hands around Hannibal’s throat, and he remembered squeezing. He remembered Hannibal pinned beneath him, helpless on the desk, completely under his control. He remembered the thrill he felt from holding Hannibal’s life quite literally in his hands, the nearly uncontrollable desire to rip it out and quench it.

He remembered telling Hannibal to _beg_.

“I did think about killing you,” Will admitted quietly. “I did come close a few times.” He swallowed, listened to Hannibal’s silence as he waited for Will to continue.

Will swallowed again, clenched his fists, released them. He looked up and met Hannibal’s clear gaze evenly for the first time in weeks. When he spoke, his voice was steady.

“It felt good.”

That night, Will went back to the clearing where he’d first seen the Wendigo drinking blood from Daniel Cates’s body. It was already waiting for him; that had become more common than not in the last few weeks, and it didn’t surprise him.

There was a flash of blue on its left front foot; a small blue butterfly, fluttering its wings gently as it rested on one long, curved claw. Several more flashes of blue caught Will’s attention, and suddenly the butterflies were everywhere, alighting on the branches of surrounding trees, wings glittering as they flickered through the air. Uneasy flight patterns, as always, rising and falling erratically, unpredictable for all the predictability of their young.

“I’m not a butterfly,” he said aloud. He looked at the Wendigo. “And your wing is still broken.”

Yes, it was still broken. It was still bent, still dragging on the ground, tips still coated in a thin layer of frost. So much was the same as ever. But it was different now, too. Something had changed; he sensed it, and he knew the Wendigo sensed it too, and it was more than just the fact that the wing looked somehow less broken than before.

Just a trick of the light, or the start to a miracle?

“I was…made to believe…that the loss of time I experienced as a result of my encephalitis was related to the Ripper cases,” Will said to it. “I feared that I may have been more involved in them than I was aware of, to the point where I thought that maybe _I_ was the Ripper, and that all this suspicion I had of who the Ripper really was…I felt like I couldn’t trust my mind.

“Because why should I trust it?” Will asked, and there was a small smile on his face. He took a step towards the Wendigo and it tilted its head at him, the feathers where its ears might have been ruffling slightly.

“You’re always here when I want to see you,” Will continued. “Every time I come, you’re always here. And every time I want you to leave, you’re gone. But you never leave any trace of being here; your tracks fade moments after they’re formed. Every time you leave it’s like you were never here at all.” He trailed off for a moment, taking another step towards the Wendigo. “And somehow you know about the Ripper’s kills. You know when they happen, where they happen, how they happen, to the point where you can bring me things from them that no one else should know. The most significant things, Wendigo, those are the things you bring me. I’m the only one who understands it.” He paused. “And Hannibal, I suppose he understands it too.”

He was close to the Wendigo now. “I always assumed it was something magical about you. But magic doesn’t exist. And yet, here you are.” He paused, swallowed. “You are…impossible,” he murmured, slowly and deliberately, and reached out a hand. His fingers brushed the cold outer feathers, tangled in deeper to feel the warmth closer to the Wendigo’s body. “Impossible, if I try and explain what you are rationally. But you’re not rational. You are…a part of my mind.”

His hand reached up, following the powerful curve of the Wendigo’s wing to where it joined into the rest of its body. It was warmer here, almost hot, close to the skin, and the skin felt like silk. He touched the lean shoulders, the ruff around its neck, the mask of its face, his fingers as gentle as the tenderness of black on its feathers.

He was looking into its eyes now, searching the endless darkness for stars or nebulas or something other than the blackness that met him, but there was nothing there.

“This is all just a part of my mind,” he whispered, and the Wendigo clicked. There was a faint hum that surrounded him; he couldn’t tell if it came from outside or if it was just the Wendigo’s presence in his mind. “I think I’ve known that for a while now. I…it’s difficult for me to believe that I was able to create something so beautiful, but then again, I suppose…everything humans create has to come from reality at some point or another, after all. I suppose I must have seen something beautiful enough in waking for my mind to come up with you in dreaming.”

His hand slipped from the Wendigo’s face, the warmth fading almost immediately from his fingertips until they could have been coated in frost like the ends of the feathers dragging on the ground.

“I must have seen the Ripper and known him,” Will said. “The beauty of his existence is the atoms that created you.”

The Wendigo blinked once; it’s feathers quivered.

“Tell me your name,” he said.

He heard the response in his head; the same low, multi-layered voice that had been there every other time, almost electronic; entirely otherworldly. _You already know who I am_.

A faint smile curved Will’s lips; the Wendigo’s face didn’t move, but he could see his smile reflected in its expression.

Yes. He knew its name now. He thought that perhaps he’d always known. He’d always suspected it was the Ripper, but he knew that wasn’t quite right. The Wendigo wasn’t exactly Hannibal Lecter. It wasn’t exactly Will Graham either, though it was a part of his mind; it was something more, something in between.

A dragonfly. Change and preservation, good and evil. The duality of what he and Hannibal were together, combined in a beautiful creature still with a broken wing.

He took a step back. “You’re not real,” he whispered.

The Wendigo watched him, gaze cold and calculating as always, though there was a bit of that amusement Will could still feel tickling the corners of his mind. It remained motionless; blue butterflies flitted around behind it, and the air shimmered with their glittering wings.

Will swallowed. “You’re not real,” he repeated quietly. “And I…I don’t need you anymore.”

The Wendigo watched him for another few moments, and then it blinked, and stood and rose up to its full height. Will drew in a shuddering breath, closed his eyes.

There was a rustle of wind, barely more than a light breeze, brushing back his hair, tickling his face like the wings of butterflies. He counted his rushing heartbeats, the breaths that he tried to steady—one, two, three, four—and opened his eyes.

The Wendigo was gone. So were the butterflies. All that was left were the shimmering stars scattered in the ocean of space above him, the bones of branches reaching up in supplication to the heavens, and the faint, lingering scent of sandalwood and citrus—and Will was alone.


	9. Chapter 9

OCTOBER

The Wendigo was gone. Will had expected to feel something—a pang in his chest, perhaps, something to remind him of the pain of its absence, but he felt nothing. He felt numb, like it didn’t matter to him that he wouldn’t see it again.

Maybe that meant that he was right, in the end. He had himself; he even had Hannibal, if he decided that’s what he wanted. Maybe he really didn’t need the Wendigo anymore.

He went back to the chapel where the heart had been. It would already be gone now, he knew, long since moved from its gallery to its penultimate resting spot: the FBI’s morgue, after which it would be laid permanently to rest.

Other than the crime scene tape across the door and the absence of the heart from earlier in the morning, the chapel was unchanged. Will walked down the aisle, slowly, comfortably, imagining what the Ripper would have seen as he brought the body to its spot. He paused by the second row of pews, slipped between the benches to his left and sat.

The Ripper’s heart might have been removed, but when Will closed his eyes he could see it. He saw the black-stained skin, the elegant wings grafted so perfectly into the body. When he opened his eyes it was there in front of him again, as if it had never been touched, and as he watched he saw it stretch its wings and unfold.

It was a man. He would have been nicely proportioned and conventionally attractive, but now he was bleeding a bit from his nose through which his brain had been removed and his joins had been dislocated. He walked with an awkward, lurching gait on all fours, almost a limp, two-beated like a heart’s contraction, and his eyes were wide and staring and his face slack and expressionless.

He walked back up the aisle past Will, stumbling a little every now and then, wings held beautifully and elegantly but unused over his back. A few feathers were clipped, but most were intact, and as Will watched, the broken ones began to slowly mend as he limped up the aisle, rebuilding barb by barb as the shaft of the feather lengthened to a taper. He was becoming whole again, his gait becoming steadier from where before it was laborious and shaky, muscles almost seeming to swell with newfound strength as he stood up from all fours and reached his arms up to his God and spread his wings as if to fly—

Behind him, the main doors clicked shut.

Will blinked, and the man that had been made into a heart vanished, and he was alone in the darkness of the chapel.

But someone had come in, even if Will couldn’t see him yet. He stood, slipped silently into the shadows near the far wall, walked slowly towards the entrance as he heard footsteps approach the aisle—slow, steady, almost reverent, as if the intruder knew what he should have found here and was coming here to worship it.

He saw the intruder, then; a young man, with tousled brown hair, walking down the same path he and Hannibal had walked down not so long ago. He looked calm, but Will couldn’t tell if it was borne out of peace or of resolute anger, and his gaze was fixed ahead of him.

Suddenly, Will was overcome with the urge to kill him. It wasn’t a _desire_ —no, it wasn’t as passionate as that. It was more just a curiosity, a passive interest in what the outcome of such an act would be; he knew what he wanted to do, and the young man’s death was just a means to an end.

The man fought back when Will attacked. He writhed and gasped and tried to run, but he was caught by surprise, and he stood no chance.

The death was caused by a broken neck. Viciously done, the movement swift and effective, and Will imagined it was Hannibal beneath him. The body was dragged up to the front, in front of the pews, in full display for the congregation, and Will turned him into art, into the response that the Ripper had been waiting months for, and in the man’s body Will wrote beauty and acceptance.

The Ripper’s heart may no longer have been there, but Will could see it in his mind, all the grooves and curves that were part of it, and he shaped the man’s body, bent it to fit against the heart had it been there to make it whole. He had wire and knives in the trunk of his car; stained glass was broken, arranged in the shape of four wings, attached with wire to the man’s back as smoothly as the wings had been mounted on the heart, and the man’s face removed with a small hunting knife. He would become part of the heart; there would be no need for individuality. The blend of the two was to be seamless.

Moonlight spilled in from the stained-glass windows, washing him in silver, bathing him and the hellish act in heavenly light—but was it really so hellish? He was mending the Ripper’s broken heart, after all. Surely there was some redemption in that.

He sat by his creation when it was done. It was purposeful, but it was messy, bloody; the passionate underpainting on a canvas rather than the cold sculpture that had been the Ripper’s work. But it was cleaner than it might have been otherwise, the lines neat and taut under the rivulets of blood, just as there had been an element of rawness to the Ripper’s heart that had been missing in his earlier tableaus.

They were joining, the Ripper pulling Will to him just as Will was tugging back against the Ripper. The rope between them was shortening, their souls bleeding through the fibers, saturating and drowning the dry expanse between them until their colors blended in ecstatic glory.

Will could almost see Hannibal smile. He could almost hear his voice, saying _see? This is what it is like to touch a god_ , and Will almost laughed, and he almost said _yes, yes Hannibal, I see what it’s like to touch a god, and it’s more brilliant than I ever could have imagined._

He sat by the body for a while once it was finished. His hands were bloody; the skin of the man’s face needed disposing of, and it was dripping onto the ground where he sat. But those could wait for a while. For now, he just wanted to sit, and watch, and think.

He’d just killed for the second time. He knew it should have been horrifying, and once it might have been for him, but not now. Now his mind was quiet; at peace with his creation where once it would have shuddered away from it. He’d imagined it was Hannibal and had felt a rush of fierce satisfaction through his body as the bone crunched beneath his hands, but he’d also felt an aching, a crushing, a longing.

_He’s concerned that despite your efforts and despite your vigilance against manipulation, you have, in fact, been manipulated. He’s concerned that you are falling for the trap the Ripper has laid out for you._

He could have laughed. Fallen, indeed, and by the autumn that the Ripper had promised.

It was near the break of dawn by the time Will stood and headed home. He knew Jack would call him in a few hours, no doubt, when the team returned to finish processing and clean up the original scene only to find that something else had been erected in its wake; as expected, his phone rang at just past eight in the morning, and Jack’s voice was angry.

“The Ripper again, or an admirer?” Jack asked, as soon as Will showed up on site.

Will looked around, frowned. “Where’s Hannibal?”

“He was indisposed,” Alana said. “I’m here instead.”

Will’s frown deepened. “Indisposed,” he repeated. _I don’t know if I should ever see you again_. He paused, and then turned to the display. It looked even more magnificent now in the sunlight streaming in through the broken window, casting it in rays of gold, the glass of the dragonfly wings scattering a mosaic of colors across the floor.

Jack was watching him closely. “Will?” he asked.

“It’s not the Ripper,” Will said. “There’s no organs missing; the body is whole. It’s shaped so that it would fit in with the Ripper’s heart, had it still been here. The drips of blood on the floor there near the base of the display show that the killer likely sat by his creation for a while after it was complete, contemplating it. That’s not something the Ripper would have done.” He looked at Jack. “Did Freddie Lounds get a picture of the scene yesterday?”

“Somehow, yes,” Jack growled. “I assume that’s how this admirer knew how to shape the body.”

“Likely,” Will said.

“Regardless of who those involved were, it’s clear that there were two people here last night,” Alana said. “Someone else had to do the killing. The question is, what exactly were they doing here?”

“The Ripper might have multiple admirers,” Will said with a wry smile. “Lounds has an avid fanbase; gossip always makes for good reading. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were quite a few people following what she was posting of the Ripper’s tableaus, and when they see that he’s presented his broken heart, someone of them might have been delusional enough to believe that he was talking to them.”

“Instead, he was talking to you,” Jack said.

“There was no way they’d know that,” Will said. “They might have both come with the hope of seeing the display for themselves, and when they found each other, one of them killed the other. A…competition for his affection, if you will. Each of them hoping that they’ll be the one he notices, hoping that he’ll respond to the possibility of dialogue they’ve opened up.”

Alana circled the display. “He’s faceless, like the last one, though in different ways. The face of this victim has been cut off, the face of the Ripper’s victim was hidden as the head was tucked under within the heart itself.” She glanced at Will. “Any significance?”

Will nodded once. “He wants to remain anonymous in the face of the Ripper’s shadow,” he said. “He expresses a desire to be one with the Ripper in the way he’s integrated this body, but he’s still deferring. He cares for the Ripper’s heart. He wants the Ripper to know that he’s interested in knowing him.”

“And how will the Ripper respond?” Jack asked.

Will huffed a laugh. “Well, if this wasn’t made by the person the Ripper is truly courting, the Ripper will find them and kill them for daring to answer a call not meant for them. He’d consider that rude.”

“The display would blend seamlessly,” Jack said. “As if they understand each other perfectly.” He paused, looked at will. “You understand him perfectly, it seems.”

Will met his gaze. “Are you accusing me?”

Jack’s eyes were dark; there was a shadow of a smile playing around his mouth, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Only if you think I am. Tell me, what’s the other outcome? What if this _was_ made by the person the Ripper is truly courting?”

Will swallowed. “Then, I think you should be very worried indeed,” he said. His lips curved in amusement. “What a situation you would have on your hands if your plan at using me to bait the Ripper ended up backfiring.”

“What a situation, indeed,” Jack echoed.

There was a long, tense silence.

“All hypotheticals, of course,” Alana said quietly, finally.

Jack laughed. Will turned to her, let his smile widen. “Of course,” he said. “All hypotheticals.”

Will wasn’t sure what brought him to Hannibal’s house that evening, but the pale, stately building loomed up in front of him when he stepped out of the car. He felt a thrill of adrenaline as his foot touched the ground, felt the adrenaline surge into excitement as the gravel crunched under his feet. To his right, a flock of blackbirds took flight; soundless, except for the beat of a thousand wings like a gust of wind.

He knew what Hannibal was now. He knew what Hannibal had turned him into. He knew that there was no going back from what he had become.

And he knew he was okay with that now.

Will’s hand slipped to the gun at his belt. It was a crude weapon, he thought, without thinking about why his hand had moved there of its own accord. A gun was too fast, too violent, too… _impartial_. It was hard to predict what exactly a bullet would do once it left the barrel, and even harder to predict what exactly it would do when it entered the body. There was the possibility of a clean shot, for sure, and the roar of the gun and the jerk of the recoil would always echo satisfyingly in Will’s bones down to the very core of his existence, but there was too much that was left to chance. Too much risk that the bullet would be misplaced, ricochet off a bone and destroy the fragile tissue of an organ Will would rather have had kept whole.

No, a knife was better. The recoil of a knife striking down into bone would find Will’s core just as easily as the recoil of a gun. Or even better than a knife, Will’s hands. Only direct contact would let him feel the life leaving the body, let him feel the frantic staccato of a dying heart and the desperate heave of drowning lungs. Only his hands would let him make the kill _his_ , and his alone, and his entirely.

But Will knew Hannibal was stronger than him and would need to be subdued with a harder weapon first before Will could finish the job, and a gun was all he had for now. It was faster than any other weapon he or Hannibal would have preferred, and if he could keep Hannibal cornered, if he could keep the man at his mercy while he had time to rifle through the kitchen and find something more suited for the job, something that would incapacitate but leave the other man alive…

Hannibal had done this to him.

Hannibal had only himself to blame for what was coming to him.

This was his reckoning.

Something told him Hannibal would be home. He stood on the front porch, let his hand slip from the weapon but hang just close enough that it was within quick and easy reach, and sure enough, Hannibal opened the door several seconds after the chime of the doorbell.

“Hello, Will,” Hannibal said. “I thought you said you shouldn’t see me again.”

The breath had left Will’s lungs as soon as he’d seen Hannibal’s face. “And yet, you don’t seem surprised to see me,” Will said, when he regained control of his diaphragm enough to speak again. His voice was surprisingly steady, and a faint smile curved the corners of Hannibal’s lips at his words.

There was a small pause, during which neither of them moved.

“Some things change,” Will said finally.

“Are you here to kill me?” Hannibal asked. He seemed completely calm, but he remained in the shadow of the doorway, his body half-hidden by the door and the interior of the house hidden behind his frame. A faint thrill ran up Will’s spine as he realized that Hannibal truly did not know the answer to that question, and he echoed Hannibal’s smile as he realized that he didn’t either.

“I thought I was,” Will said. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“Hm.” Hannibal hesitated, and then stepped back. “Would you like a drink?”

For a moment, as the other man moved, the shadows shifted. The sunlight behind Will reached its fingers into the interior of Hannibal’s home, and the shade cast by the bare branches of the trees in Hannibal’s front yard sprouted antlers by the head of Hannibal’s shadow.

For just a second, Hannibal was the Wendigo.

“A drink would be nice,” Will heard himself say, and he let the hand on his gun side relax. There would be time soon enough.

He stepped inside beside Hannibal, who shut the door behind him. He felt Hannibal’s arm brush briefly against his.

“The Ripper was right,” Will said as he followed Hannibal into the kitchen. “About me, I mean. Once I killed once, I would never be able to stop.”

“I know,” Hannibal said. He walked around an island countertop and glanced at Will as he opened the wine cabinet. “What do you say to Cabernet Sauvignon? A rich red French wine.”

Will made a noncommittal noise. Hannibal watched him for a moment, smiled softly, almost fondly, and picked out what Will assumed was the bottle he had just recommended.

“Other people do bad things to survive,” Will said, watching Hannibal uncork the wine. “You’re not other people.”

“Neither are you,” Hannibal said with a smile. “I liked the gift,” he continued as he poured the wine into two large glasses. “It was very poetic.”

“Gift?”

“Yours,” Hannibal said. “Jack texted me a picture several hours ago.”

“Ah,” Will said. So he knew about that already. And what a gift indeed, wrapped in the most poetic way he could think of: around Hannibal’s heart. Touching a god. Drawing from divine presence the strength it took to become the dragonfly Hannibal had always seen in him.

“The dragonfly wings gave it away as me, didn’t they?” he asked with a small smile.

“The beauty of it gave it away,” Hannibal replied, echoing Will’s smile. “I could see your mind in it, the chaos and conflict of your position reflected in the fragments that made up the wings. And, of course, only you know my heart well enough to have shaped something around it so perfectly.”

Will huffed a laugh. That was true, of course; no one knew Hannibal as well as he did. He glanced around; he was somewhat familiar with Hannibal’s kitchen, enough to know that the knife he wanted was kept in a drawer behind Hannibal and to his left. It was an elegant, slender filleting knife with the keenest blade he’d ever seen; a bit too delicate for the heavy work of a violent death blow, but it would do quite nicely for bloodletting, or the delicate carving that he intended after for Hannibal. It would be keen enough to find its sheath neatly in Hannibal’s flesh and write out his fate in his blood.

“He asked me for my input,” Hannibal said about the text, and he sounded amused. “He said that I was the next best thing, since he wasn’t sure he could fully trust you anymore.” He stoppered the bottle, set it aside, and held Will’s gaze with glittering eyes as he handed him his glass over the countertop. “He’s right about that last part, at least.”

“You’re sure about that?” Will asked. He sipped from the glass; the wine was rich, as Hannibal had promised, with notes of cherry and something that seemed like spice.

“Quite sure,” Hannibal said. He quirked his lips. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“You led me here,” Will said, instead of responding to Hannibal’s implied question, and ignoring the fact that his own response was an implied answer. “You set me up. You led me to Garret Jacob Hobbs, knowing what I’d see there, and you killed him when he got in your way. You told Freddie Lounds about Abigail, knowing that I’d go to find her and that I’d kill the person who hurt her. You knew I’d be drawn into all the cases about the Ripper, and that I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were involved in sending that young man there last night, either.” The kitchen counter still separated them, but Will was willing to bet that he could surmount that obstacle if he wanted.

Hannibal smiled, drank from his glass. “You’re correct about most of that. I was not, however, involved with sending that young man there for you to kill; I don’t even know who he was, nor was I aware that anyone else would do such a thing as hang around a crime scene after hours as you did. For all either of us knew, he was innocent.” Hannibal paused, tilted his head. “Jack tells me he wasn’t even recognizable when he was found. But I don’t think you cared if I sent him.”

Will smiled; it was more of a grimace. “You’re right. I didn’t care. I just killed him.”

Hannibal looked at him thoughtfully, swirled the wine around in its glass, and drank again. Will echoed his movement and thought about how the red liquid flowed like blood.

“I didn’t create you, if that’s what you’re accusing me of,” Hannibal said. “And I think you know that. This is who you were all along. I simply helped you discover and unearth the parts of you that society had made you hide away.”

Will smirked. “Now who’s being poetic?”

Hannibal smiled. “What is obsession more than two poets engaged in a deadly flirtation?”

Will lifted an eyebrow. “Are you saying that you’re obsessed with me?” he asked.

“I should have thought that was obvious. You came to that conclusion yourself, after all.”

Will stepped forward, pressed himself against the counter between them; Hannibal didn’t step back. When he spoke, his voice was low, the words deliberate. “And are you saying that I’m obsessed with you?”

“Quite,” Hannibal said, holding his gaze steadily. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Am I wrong?”

Will hesitated. He searched Hannibal’s gaze, finding amusement sparkling in its depths, finding a challenge lurking beneath it. Hannibal was a predator, luring him in, and he was taking the bait.

“No,” he said finally.

Hannibal didn’t move. “And yet you’re still undecided,” he said. “You’re still tormented. You’re standing on the other side of the counter as if you’re trying to separate us. As if you don’t know what you’d do if you were allowed access to me, and as if that uncertainty scares you.” He was still looking at Will, and Will found himself starting to drown, unable to look away from those stormy depths. They captivated him, held him still and helpless like a cricket driven to its premature watery death by its parasitic host.

“This can all stop,” Hannibal said. “Everything. If you want.”

Will’s breath left him in a huff. For a moment, he almost said yes, he wanted it to stop. He almost said that he was done with all of this, that all he wanted was to be able to step away and live his life in peace, alone in his house in the wilderness. But then he thought of spines cracking under his hands, of delicate bones shattering under his knuckles, of the exhilaration and beauty of the kill.

 _Oh_ , the beauty. The Ripper was capable of so much of it. Will knew he was capable of more. And that was what the world lacked, wasn’t it? Beauty. Dedication.

Love.

There was a tense silence, and then Hannibal broke it, stepped back and looked away. “I’ve sent in a confession,” he said.

“You _what_?”

Hannibal looked back up at Will again, but that mesmerizing magic that was in his gaze was gone now. If Will didn’t know better, he would have said it was resignation. “I confessed,” he said. “I called Jack back after he sent me that text. I told him to record the call, and then I told him I was the Ripper.”

Will was appalled. “He’ll never believe you,” he said.

“He will. He does.” Hannibal brought his glass to his lips; Will watched the subtle movement of his throat as he swallowed and thought about what it would be like to slice it open, or to kiss it. “I told him to look inside,” Hannibal said. “I told him to unravel the body and open it, and I told him what he would find inside. I told him things that even you would not have known about, Will. Even Jack would be able to tell that the body hadn’t been opened since its initial display. He would be forced to conclude that I am, in fact, what I claim to be. And then I told him where I would be this evening. I can play you the recording if you like, if that will convince you.”

Will stared. “You…you confessed,” he said. He still couldn’t quite believe it.

“Yes,” Hannibal said. “And by now, they would have opened the body, concluded that I am the Ripper, and started heading our way. You still have time to leave before they get here, although I’d hoped to have more time with you before they did. You arrived later than I expected.”

Will flushed, looked down, mumbled something about traffic.

Hannibal hummed. “They should be here in about half an hour, I think. You could be far away from here by then. If you left early enough, I could even clean the tracks that your car would have left in the gravel.”

And suddenly, Will understood why Hannibal had confessed. “You’re still giving me a choice,” he said.

“I have always given you a choice,” Hannibal said.

“No,” Will said. “You’re talking about choices you gave me to kill or not kill, to expose you or protect you, but I wasn’t deciding by myself then. You manipulated me. You were behind my every decision. You set it up so that once I figured out who you were, I still couldn’t say anything unless I indicted myself in the process too, and you knew I wouldn’t do that. This is different.” He paused, searched Hannibal’s face for expression, for confirmation, but he didn’t find it. “You’ve asked so many times before, but this is the last time, and you want me to decide. You want me to give you a final answer, clear and irrefutable, in a way I’ve never done before. ‘I don’t know if I should ever see you again.’” He huffed a laugh. “We both know that wasn’t an answer, so you’re demanding one now.”

Hannibal was silent. Will held his gaze defiantly, willed the impassive stone to shift and reveal something beneath it.

“But even now, you’re holding the strings,” Will said quietly, finally, and it was almost a whisper.

“I tried not to,” Hannibal said. It was honest, almost raw. “If you came to me, I wanted it to be on your own.”

“But you can’t help it,” Will said with a helpless laugh. “You can’t help but hold strings when it comes to me. You gave me two options: either I leave and let the FBI take you into custody, or I choose you and we live or die together in the next half hour. But if I leave, if I let them take you, I’ll still know where you are. You say that this can all end, but you and I both know that it never will while we both live and while I know where you are. It can’t. So you say you give me a choice, but you know that I have none. You and I both know that what I choose was inevitable from the beginning.”

Still, Hannibal was impassive.

Will looked at him. He looked at the stone gaze, the way it was cold and harsh and warm all at the same time, at the way deadly intelligence flickered through his skin and veins and muscles and tendons all the way down to his fingertips, at the way Hannibal stood there motionless, watching, waiting for him to make his choice, all the while knowing it was inevitable.

He thought about what Hannibal had done. He thought of the people he’d killed, of the things he’d made Will do, of the way he’d manipulated everyone around him to serve his own purpose. He thought of the Wendigo and the gifts it had brought back for him, of how it must have been Hannibal all along, bringing him gifts from the kills he had yet to complete and would complete because of him. He thought of Hannibal’s hands on him, of Hannibal’s teeth in his neck, of Hannibal’s nails in his shoulders.

He thought of Hannibal’s heart, lying open and dissected in the FBI’s morgue. He thought of how he was the only one in the world who could bring it back to life.

The seconds, minutes, ticked away.

“Of course you would pull something like this to force a choice from me now,” Will whispered finally.

“I couldn’t keep waiting,” Hannibal said simply, but Will could hear the fragility in his voice. “I told you months ago; courtship demands a response, and you need to decide what yours will be. You know what I want, Will.”

“I told…” Will trailed off, cleared his throat. “After I killed Nick Boyle, I told Jack that if he wanted to find you, he had to trust me. I thought I would catch you. I thought that if he trusted where I led, finding you would mean that you would end up behind bars.”

“Instead, he trusted you, and you came to me, and I gave myself up for you,” Hannibal said. “Same outcome, in the end, but the way we’ve arrived is a bit different from what you predicted. Did you think that might happen?”

Will huffed a laugh. “I have to confess I didn’t. I guess I underestimated you.”

“Yes, I think so,” Hannibal said. He paused. “You know what I want, Will,” he said again. “You know that even if you understand the Ripper and who you truly are, it’s not enough for me unless you truly accept it.”

Will swallowed. “You mean unless I leave the FBI. Unless I run away with you.”

A faint smile curved Hannibal’s lips. “Yes.”

Will was silent. He’d made his choice already; he knew that.

He looked at Hannibal’s hands, and he imagined them covered in blood, sewing up the last piece to his display. He wasn’t sure if it was his own blood or someone else’s, but then, it didn’t matter, did it? Because Will saw his own hands beside Hannibal’s, covered in that same blood, and it was beautiful.

“You set me up,” he said, and he saw the twinkle in Hannibal’s eyes.

“Yes.”

“You killed the dancers the same way I killed Nicholas Boyle—the same way I wanted to kill you—to make Jack suspicious. The Ripper watching us at Abigail’s place was unlikely, so the three of us were the only people who knew how Nicholas Boyle died. He obviously wouldn’t suspect himself; that leaves the two of us. Out of the two of us, it’s obvious who’s the unstable one. The more volatile one.” Will leaned in slightly. “The one most likely to snap.”

Hannibal brought his glass to his lips again. “He knows that it takes time for a killer to find a signature. He knows that young killers tend to build on what has worked for them in the past to find that signature.”

“Boyle’s mutilation, plus the dancers’ beauty.” Will straightened. “And then the heart,” he said. “Everything becoming more and more personal, easier and easier for me to understand. He could see us getting closer. He started wondering, ‘what if Will was the Ripper?’ Or, maybe, ‘what if Will was _becoming_ the Ripper?’ And he stopped trusting me, and he looked to you. If you wanted me to leave the FBI, breaking my trust with them and their trust with me would have been the easiest way to do it. That young man who wandered onto the crime scene was the happiest coincidence in the world for you.”

The corners of Hannibal’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Indeed it was.”

Will watched him, looked for the expression of emotion in the skull-like face, for the smile that was more than crinkled eyes and stretched lips. “But then you confessed,” he said. “Before I even arrived. The confession would have restored the FBI’s faith in me, given me every reason and opportunity to return to them.” He paused, looked closely at Hannibal’s face as if the answers would lie in the depths of his dark eyes, in the line of his mouth. “You really did try and give me complete agency,” he whispered finally.

Hannibal met his gaze, and he didn’t speak but Will understood. Hannibal might still be holding the strings, coercing Will into choosing him because that was his only true freedom, but he had tried to give Will a choice. He’d seduced Will, he’d manipulated him into understanding the Ripper and desiring him, he’d nearly gotten the FBI to chase Will into the Ripper’s arms, but in the end, he’d given Will the chance to go back to the FBI anyway.

If it had been anyone else, Will would almost have called it redemption.

But it wasn’t. There would be no redemption for Hannibal Lecter, and there would be no redemption for Will Graham; Will knew what he would choose, and he had a feeling that Hannibal knew too.

“Is this encephalitis?” Will asked. “Is all this really because of some physical illness, or is it something else? Something else that’s part of me, something actually wrong with me?”

“It’s a combination,” Hannibal said. “I tampered with your medication and occasionally drugged you with low doses of phencyclidine. A hallucinogenic often used to model schizophrenia. It causes several similar effects as your encephalitis.”

Will snorted. “Of course you did.”

“But you haven’t had encephalitis for some time now, Will,” Hannibal continued. “Your behavioral and cognitive changes persisted beyond my meddling, after the drugs would have had the chance to alleviate symptoms. And regardless of any manipulation on my part, the disease should have progressed beyond its initial stages in a matter of weeks since first onset. Even a relapse only causes the neuropsychiatric symptoms to last for a short period of time. Any hallucinations or psychotic episodes you have experienced since then, I attribute to your empathy and imagination.”

“Unless you drugged me,” Will said bluntly.

Hannibal inclined his head, and Will could hear the amusement in his voice. “Yes, unless I drugged you. I assure you those instances were rare; most of your more violent tendencies are your own. But there’s nothing wrong with you, Will, only things that are different,” Hannibal said. “We’ve both said it before; it would be illogical to characterize everything that differs from the norm as wrong. Indeed, progress is created from difference, is it not?”

“Are you still…tampering…with my medication now?” Will asked, mainly to avoid an answer. “Am I drugged?”

“No, and no.” Hannibal smiled faintly. “I tampered with your medication to trigger a relapse in your encephalitis, knowing it make you more susceptible to manipulation, and I drugged you when I was curious. So far I am unaware of any symptoms of addiction or withdrawal. But I have been completely honest now, and will continue to be, at least to you.”

Somehow, Will believed him. Hannibal had no reason to lie now.

“What about Abigail?” Will asked, after another pause. “Is she…is she really dead?”

“Yes,” Hannibal said. “I told Freddie Lounds who she was, and I told Nicholas Boyle where to find her. I did not, however, expect him to actually kill her—nor her mother, which I assume he did out of panic when she returned home to see her daughter dead and a strange man in her house. I did not and still do not think that he was a killer; I believe what happened to Abigail was an accident or overreaction more than anything else. The wounds on her body when I found her supported that idea.”

“You saw her,” Will said.

“I did, but not alive. I arrived shortly before you did, and shortly before Nicholas Boyle returned to view her body—out of guilt, I presume. I’d removed her body before either of you arrived—except for her ear, and some of her blood—and can only guess that you had subconsciously pieced together what had occurred, and the hallucinations you experienced were your mind’s ways of protecting you.”

“So you weren’t the one who killed her directly, and you never intended her to die.”

“No. I cared for her as you did, though perhaps not quite as deeply.”

“But you acknowledge and accept your responsibility and complicity in her death.”

“Yes.”

For a moment, Will felt the familiar rush of anger, but then, for the first time, it faded as quickly as it had come. Abigail was dead; there was nothing to be done about it. Nothing, not even resentment or revenge, could be done to bring her back, nor to fill the hole in his chest she had left.

“I trust that you honored her,” Will said.

“I did. In the future, I can show you.”

Will’s throat felt tight. “I’d like that,” he said, when he could speak.

Hannibal inclined his chin. Neither of them mentioned the obvious fact that the promise was contingent on them both making it out of this situation alive.

Will watched Hannibal for another few moments. Not for the purpose of figuring anything out, but just to see him. He hadn’t had the opportunity to study Hannibal Lecter as the Chesapeake Ripper before, not in the light, on his own, where he was free to let his eyes wander where they pleased, take in all the lines that made him the Ripper and wonder how he hadn’t seen them before.

Or maybe he had. There was that feeling of danger, after all, warning him subconsciously of who Hannibal really was, if only he’d bothered to—no, if only he’d been _brave_ enough to figure it out.

“You made me your dog,” Will said, almost bitterly. “You claim that it was in me all along, but even fighting breeds can be trained to be gentle, and even the gentlest breeds can be trained to fight. You trained me to kill, Hannibal, and then you presented me with the situations to do it.”

“Perhaps,” Hannibal admitted. “But all I ever wanted was for us to be equals. You saw that from the beginning. We both saw that you were predisposed to kill, and it seems only fair to allow everything to exist true to its nature.”

A wry smile twisted Will’s mouth. “You know I have every reason to kill you now.” He may have made his choice, but they both knew that accepting the Ripper did not guarantee the Ripper’s safely. Accepting the Ripper was more than physical; it transcended the Ripper himself.

“And what an end that would be for me,” Hannibal said. He sounded faintly amused.

Will looked at him. “Would you let me?”

Hannibal met his gaze evenly. “Yes.”

Will swallowed. He’d known that already. “I don’t want to run,” he rasped.

“I know.”

Will looked down at the glass of wine, still half-full in his hand. “ _You_ can still run.”

“I have no desire to run.” Hannibal waited for Will to look at him again before continuing. “I follow you, Will. Everything has been leading up to this moment, and there would have been no point if we were separated now.”

Will huffed a laugh. “I don’t know if we could even survive being separated now,” he said, and took an overlarge sip of wine to steady himself. “You know you’re putting your life in the hands of an unstable man.”

“Unstable partly by my own doing, but of no lesser quality,” Hannibal said, and Will could hear the smile in his voice. “And haven’t I been putting my life in your hands already?”

Will echoed Hannibal’s smile. It was true, he knew. Hannibal’s life had been at his mercy before, just as it was now. Hannibal had chosen him long ago.

“I want to fight,” Will said finally. 

Hannibal was silent.

“I want to fight,” Will repeated, “because if we die, then we die, and the world will be all the safer for it, but if we make it out alive…”

“Then it would be as if it was meant to be,” Hannibal said.

Will swallowed. “Poetic, isn’t it?”

“A tad cliché, if you ask me.”

“I wouldn’t say the two are mutually exclusive.”

Hannibal’s lips twitched. “And what of the third alternative? That we are both taken by the FBI and imprisoned for the rest of our lives? Which might be rather short, depending on the charges.”

Will’s mouth was dry. “There will be no third alternative,” he rasped.

Hannibal’s eyes glinted.

“If…if it seems like that’s what the outcome will be, I…” Will trailed off, took a breath, started again. “I want you to kill me.” A wry smile spread itself across his face. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about killing me.”

Hannibal’s expression softened, and he reached out hesitantly to touch Will’s face. Will shuddered and closed his eyes, leaned into the touch. It was a bit awkward with the countertop still between them, but there was something strangely sweet about it all the same, something infinitely tender.

“I don’t think I could,” Hannibal murmured.

Will huffed a laugh. “Oh, _now_ you can’t kill me. It’s because it’s not beautiful enough, is that it?” he asked, opening his eyes. “You can’t kill me now because you wouldn’t be able to honor me, to _own_ me. If you killed me on your own, you would be able to claim me and use me as you would. But if you killed me now, you would be giving up. You would be giving _me_ up, and that’s the one thing you could never do, even if you’d be losing to death himself.”

Hannibal was silent; Will took that as confirmation.

Will reached up to take Hannibal’s wrist, and he held it tight. “Promise me, Hannibal,” he said. “Promise me that you’ll make sure the only outcomes for me would be death, or –”

“Or freedom,” Hannibal finished. “I understand.” He held Will’s gaze for a long while; they both understood the implications of the word, and for a moment, Will could see Icarus laughing behind Hannibal’s eyes.

“Alright,” he said finally. “If it comes down to that, I’ll do it.”

It felt like a seal, like vows taken that would bind them to each other for eternity.

Hannibal didn’t ask Will to do the same for him, and Will didn’t ask.

Will glanced at the time. “Less than ten minutes,” he said. There was no shake in his voice; he wasn’t afraid. He’d come to terms with his own mortality long ago.

Hannibal looked meaningfully at the glass still in Will’s hand, at the red still in Will’s glass. “You’d better finish your wine, then.”

“Mm. Nothing like a tipsy gunfight, is there?” Will mused, but he finished his wine all the same. “I assume you have a gun?”

“I do,” Hannibal said. He waited for Will to set his now-empty glass down on the countertop before heading towards his home office, where he pulled his weapon out of one of the desk drawers. It was a standard FBI-issued handgun; not the most elegant, but certainly effective. “It’s a rather distasteful weapon even if it reaches the same end, don’t you think?” Hannibal asked, looking thoughtfully at the gun.

“Exactly what I thought when I came here to kill you,” Will said with a smile.

“Ah. I was under the impression that you hadn’t made up your mind. I was equally prepared for both possibilities, but I must say I’m glad you didn’t,” Hannibal said.

“Mm. Me too,” Will said. “I think.”

Hannibal mirrored Will’s smile. “I think Jack is going to regret issuing me this,” he said, about the gun.

“I think Jack is going to regret a lot of things,” Will said.

“True. It’s a pity,” Hannibal mused. “I respect him, even if he is a bit blind at times. You must admit your instability wasn’t entirely due to my meddling,” he said, as he headed back towards the kitchen; Will followed. “He pushed you. He was the one who brought you into this in the first place, despite warnings that he would push you too far. In the end, even when he began to suspect your complicity in the Ripper’s murders, he was blinded to his role in your metamorphosis.”

“And he introduced me to you,” Will said bluntly.

Hannibal laughed. “Yes, I think that’s the thing he’s going to regret most of all, if we get out of this. I don’t suppose he’ll be here,” he added, putting his and Will’s empty glasses carefully into the dishwasher and, inexplicably, since they were very likely to be dead by the time it was over, running the wash cycle. “Jack or anyone else on the team. I don’t think he’d want to risk the emotional compromise of any of his agents. He’ll probably suspect I kidnapped you if they don’t see you,” he said with an amused smile. “Even if the team isn’t particularly attached to me, Beverly, at least, is quite fond of you.”

Will swallowed. Beverly. Alana. He still didn’t know quite how he felt about choosing Hannibal over them. He didn’t know what he would do if Hannibal were wrong, and if they were the ones coming for him.

But Hannibal was never wrong, and Will knew Jack well enough to know what he would do. He wouldn’t risk his agents here, not now. They were too close to the case.

“No matter what happens, this is the last time we’ll see this place,” Will murmured.

“Most likely,” Hannibal agreed.

“It’s strange,” Will admitted after a moment. “I’ve lived here for years and was wrapped up in my own little world the whole time, when I still had all the time in the universe. Now I’m faced with the prospect of leaving and suddenly wish that I’d gotten out more.” He huffed a laugh.

“There will be other worlds to explore,” Hannibal said, with the faintest of smiles.

“Yeah, ‘suppose so.” Will glanced at the other man, then looked away again. “I guess…I feel at peace now, somehow. Now that the choice is made. There’s nothing more to be done.”

“It’s freeing, isn’t it?” Hannibal asked quietly.

“What, accepting you?”

“Accepting yourself.”

Will swallowed. “I feel…light,” he murmured. “Like I was carrying a weight with me for so long, and now it’s been lifted. I feel like I could fly.”

“No more broken wings,” Hannibal said.

“No more broken wings,” Will echoed. He walked forward slowly, stopping when he was right in front of Hannibal. Hannibal was slightly taller than him; Will looked up at him, met the clear, calm gaze.

“That’s all I ever wanted for you, Will,” Hannibal said quietly. “For you to be free. For you to be happy.” He paused. “Would this be enough? Do you think you could be happy with me?”

Will’s gaze traveled over Hannibal’s face now, wondering at the translucence of his skin and the delicacy of the bone underneath. There was so much ageless beauty in that face, so much ancient nobility like the spirit of an old god encased in porcelain. “I think, like Icarus, I find happiness in freedom,” he murmured. “And in any case, I’ve walked through madness and emerged to find myself standing here beside you. We are poised at the edge of a cliff, hand in hand as we prepare to take the plunge. If we fly, if our wings catch us in freedom…” He trailed off, met Hannibal’s gaze again. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think I’d be happy.”

There was immeasurable tenderness in Hannibal’s expression. “I felt like I dug a thousand graves in the days after your rejection,” he said. “Now that you’re here, all I want is for you to stay with me.”

“Where else would I go?” Will could see the pulse in Hannibal’s neck; suddenly, he wanted to touch it. Not take it between his teeth and rip it out; no. He wanted to caress that beating length of skin, to feel it gently on his fingertip. So he lifted a hand, brought it slowly to Hannibal’s throat, let his thumb rest against the delicate flutter. When Hannibal swallowed, Will felt it.

He slid his hand up, let fingertips drag along the underside of Hannibal’s jaw. There was a very slight stubble there; Hannibal would have shaved that morning. His thumb drifted to Hannibal’s mouth, feeling the softness and heat of his lips, tracing their outline. They parted, and Will saw the sharpness of his teeth, felt the coolness of his breath.

“Will, what—” Hannibal began.

“Shh,” Will murmured. “Don’t speak. Just let me.”

Hannibal fell silent again, and Will’s hands kept touching. He traced the proud line of Hannibal’s nose and the regal cut of his cheekbones; they were sharp, dipping slightly into the hollow of his cheek. His skin was soft here, as it was around his eyes, which fluttered closed as Will’s fingers drew close. He traced along the arch of the brow, pushing just hard enough that he could feel the bone of the socket. The ten-minute mark came and went, and they remained alone in silence, and neither of them mentioned it.

Will’s fingers slipped from Hannibal’s face, lowered to catch Hannibal’s hands. He held them almost wonderingly; these were hands that had wrought so much destruction and created so much beauty. These were hands that had taken life and then given art. These were hands that Will had let touch him, _know_ him, and one day Will would want them inside him.

He followed the line of Hannibal’s fingers, from the back of his hand where tendon joined at his wrist to where they tapered to clean, neatly trimmed nails. He traced each of them, feeling the wrinkle of knuckles and the deadness of silvery scars, marveled at the way Hannibal’s hands were so malleable in his. He was so shapeable when Will was touching him, so pliant, so eager to bend to Will’s desires.

Will turned his hand over, brushed his thumb gently over the calloused skin of Hannibal’s palm. It was a sensitive region, filled with thousands of nerve endings, and Will saw Hannibal shiver under his touch. He traced each of Hannibal’s fingers again, from the slight valley between the two large muscles at the base of his palm out to the fleshy pads of his fingertips. He heard Hannibal’s shaky exhale, allowed himself a small, brief smile.

Will lifted Hannibal’s hand, holding it up between them with palm facing Hannibal. He squeezed the forearm, watched the fingers involuntarily contract. His touch crept up past Hannibal’s wrist, his own hand spreading out across the back of Hannibal’s, fingers slipping between Hannibal’s and locking briefly before releasing. He rotated Hannibal’s arm so that their palms kissed, and Will caressed him, and there was a pressure in his chest that was wonder and curiosity and so much more.

His hand returned to Hannibal’s pulse then, thumb pressing gently against it. The rest of his hand wrapped around the back of Hannibal’s neck, fingertips edging along his spine. He could have pulled Hannibal in for a kiss now, apply light pressure to bring the other man forward, tilt his chin up and catch Hannibal’s lips with his own.

But he didn’t. His hand shifted back suddenly instead, reached to catch in Hannibal’s hair, tangling fingers in silver strands. Hannibal exhaled sharply; the pulse jumped in his throat. For a moment, both of them stood perfectly still.

And then Will dropped his hand, stepped back, and he could breathe again.

There was a moment of silence; Will broke it. “Shame about the wine,” he said quietly with an amused smile. “You made such a big deal out of me finishing my glass, and now we’re leaving the rest of the bottle behind.”

“You’re welcome to bring it with you, if you like,” Hannibal said, mirroring Will’s grin. He took a beat too long to reply, and his voice was hoarse.

“No thanks,” Will said. “It would be a bigger shame to spill it. We can always come back for it.” He glanced at Hannibal again, suddenly realized that he wasn’t sure how he felt about potentially seeing Hannibal die. Will understood what Hannibal had wanted for them now; he’d wanted them to be something new, something more beautiful and elegant than the Ripper, something darker and more brilliant than Will.

He suddenly didn’t want to face the prospect of going on alone. He’d chosen the Ripper, and the Ripper had chosen him, and he didn’t know what they would be without each other. He didn’t know if, now that they had come together, they could survive separation.

“Did you make such a big deal out of finishing my glass because you’re genuinely upset at the thought of wasting it, or did you just really want to start the dishwasher?” Will asked.

Hannibal laughed; the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Both, I suppose. I’ll have you know that I don’t frequently use the dishwasher; I find handwashing to be more reliable. In this case, however, it seemed to be the more practical option.”

Outside, Will could hear the distant drone of a helicopter. It was far, but not for long; like the Ripper, it was inevitable, and the sound grew louder and louder with every second ticking past until it drowned out the ticking and it was unmistakable that it was the FBI, finally come to the wolf’s den. Floodlights flared suddenly; the slight movement of the hovering helicopter cast their blinding lights in through the windows, painting abstract, fleeting patterns over Hannibal’s face. It looked eerie, otherworldly, alien. As if Hannibal was some strange creature that had fallen to earth.

He’d known it was coming, but Will felt his shoulders tense nevertheless. Here was the reckoning, come for them both.

“Ah,” Hannibal said, echoing Will’s thoughts. “There they are.” He glanced at his watch. “They’re late too, by about the same margin you were.”

“Mm. You’re always just one step ahead of everyone, aren’t you? Even when it comes to time.”

“It’s rude to be late,” Hannibal pointed out.

Will huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that, I guess.” He took a deep breath. “I suppose we go meet them now,” he said.

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed.

Outside, the loudspeaker informed them that they were surrounded, ordered them to walk outside slowly with their hands in the air. It was loud enough that it seemed to shake the air, rattle the walls of the house.

“Slim chances,” Will said lightly.

“As we both expected, I think,” Hannibal said. “Although I don’t know if either of us counted on them bringing a helicopter. It seems to be a bit overkill.”

Will shrugged. “What do you say we meet them head-on?”

Hannibal looked amused. “Considering we’re surrounded, I think we have little choice.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t have a secret tunnel out of here or anything?”

Hannibal’s lips curved in a smile. “You and I both know the time to run has passed.”

Will’s heart stuttered at that. He hadn’t actually, truly realized what it would be like to face the wrath of the FBI with Hannibal by his side until tonight. He hadn’t considered that they might actually die, right here and now, and it would be by his call. He hadn’t thought about just what it would feel like to literally hold Hannibal’s life in his hands, and for Hannibal to be wholly, unquestioningly yielding to him, and for Will to _want to yield back_ , and for it to all happen out of a bond stronger than anger.

It was exhilarating.

They were by the front door now. In just a few moments, whatever happened, it would truly be all over, just as Hannibal had promised.

Hannibal turned to him. “I must ask, Will, did that night really mean nothing?”

Will snorted. “You’re fucking unbelievable. Are you seriously asking me this right now?”

Hannibal tilted his head. “Doesn’t everyone wish for a bit of clarity before they’re about to die?”

Will laughed helplessly, caught the fondness in Hannibal’s eyes at the sound. “Alright. How’s this for clarity?” he said, and kissed him.

It was reckless, and even Will didn’t expect it of himself. But if Hannibal was surprised, he didn’t show it. He brought his free hand up to cradle Will’s face, melted into Will’s touch, opened up for his tongue. He mouthed at Will like Will was oxygen and Will responded in kind, licking into Hannibal’s mouth, running his fingers almost desperately through Hannibal’s beautifully groomed hair, pressing himself so close that he didn’t think it was possible to be any closer. Will took Hannibal’s bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on it, nipped until he tasted blood, but it was different now; this time it was passion and wanting to be whole. It didn’t quite answer the question, but Will didn’t know if he’d wanted that night to mean anything, and what mattered was that _this_ meant something _now_ , and their futures were uncertain, so now was all that mattered.

They drank each other in. They knew each other, more completely and more thoroughly than they had ever known anything else. Will _wanted_ Hannibal to know him now; he wanted Hannibal’s hands on him, over him, _inside_ him, claiming him and making him his own. The Ripper had submitted to him already; now he wanted to submit to Hannibal. His mouth moved by some distant part of his brain not drunk on Hannibal’s lips and whispered things against Hannibal’s skin that he didn’t even know; promises, affections, wants. Desires to do it again and again and again.

They were both flushed when they finally broke apart several minutes later, and Will felt almost giddy. The loudspeaker issued another warning, commanded them to step outside with their hands up, and Will laughed, exhilarated; it seemed almost ridiculous to be doing what they were doing. He felt like two schoolboys getting caught making out behind the locker room, which was absurd, because schoolboys had their whole lives ahead of them but Will felt like they were so much _more._ Two schoolboys were two schoolboys, but they were Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, two beautiful, wretched minds trying to get in one last kiss before the irrevocable sealing of their fate.

Hannibal was looking at him, and there was immeasurable tenderness in his eyes. “If I saw you every day forever, Will, I would remember this time,” he murmured, and Will knew he wasn’t talking about reddened lips or flushed cheeks or bright eyes, but of acceptance, of becoming.

Will held his gaze. He wondered if this would be the last time they saw each other, or if there would be a forever like Hannibal said.

“You always knew how this would end,” Will said. “Your promise was written out months ago, set in prophecy in Daniel Cates’s body. When you told me I would fall by autumn, it wasn’t a hope; it was a command. And I obeyed it.”

“There were things set in motion from the beginning to try and lead you to this point,” Hannibal agreed. “In the end, though, you still got here yourself.” He tilted his head. “Tell me, how long have you known what you would do?”

“Oh, I think I knew from the beginning,” Will murmured. “I was in denial at first, of course. But even as I fought it, part of me always knew how this was going to end, that it was going to come to this. You…you are inevitable.”

A fleeting tenderness softened Hannibal’s features. “Do you love me, Will?” he asked.

Will swallowed. “Yes,” he whispered.

Was it love, or was it just fascination turned to obsession? He didn’t know. But as twisted as the love might be, Hannibal believed he was capable of it, and Will believed the Ripper was capable of it, and Will and the Ripper and Hannibal were one and the same.

So, then, he concluded that it must be.

Hannibal smiled. He opened the door, and the floodlights cast a halo around Hannibal’s hair whipped wild in the helicopter’s wind, and Will was more at peace than he had ever been.

“Gun!” he heard someone yell, but Hannibal was already firing, and then he was too. He saw with absolute clarity, and he was more alive than ever before. Blood rushed hot and loud through his ears, his heart leapt as bullets sang through the air, and he and Hannibal whirled around each other like a reckless, deadly dance. He caught a glimpse of Hannibal’s smiling face, of Hannibal’s eyes bright with exhilaration for just a second before they swept apart again. For a moment, they were two young gods each with half a soul, moving with abandon, dancing together on the knife-edge of mortality.

And then he was falling. There was a flash and a bang and a sharp pain under his ribs, and he was falling, and he couldn’t stop it. He could see stars in front of him, twinkling bright and clear, laughing in the night sky. He could see the floodlights of the helicopter and feel them bleaching his eyes, and he could see fire, and then, just before he closed his eyes and let everything fade to blackness, he saw the Wendigo spread its wings and fly.


	10. Chapter 10

EPILOGUE

There were many things in Will’s life that he regretted. Abigail’s death, for example. Or leaving Alana and Beverly with no explanation. (Though he thought that maybe, somehow, sometime, he could write to them.)

Choosing Hannibal was not one of them.

Will didn’t know where he was, or what day it was, or what had happened, or even if he was conscious or not. He didn’t know if it had been just seconds since he’d been shot and this was the feeble scrabbling of his mind holding onto the remnants of life, or if it had been days, and he was finally waking from sleep. He didn’t know anything other than the touch he could feel on his wrist; warm, calloused, comforting.

 _Hannibal_.

Ah. Alive then. If he’d had enough energy, he would’ve smiled. He should’ve known that Hannibal would find a way around it all. He should’ve known that still, despite everything, Hannibal was holding the strings.

He focused on Hannibal for a bit while he still had strength. He concentrated on the comforting heat, the gentle pressure, the tenderness that radiated through that deadly touch; he listened to the deep, even breathing that told him Hannibal had fallen asleep sitting beside him, waiting for him to wake—which he would, in time, when he was ready. The pain under his ribs was a faded ache now, and breathing didn’t hurt so much anymore, so he could concentrate on existing, just being, beside the other half of himself. And if he concentrated enough, he thought he could even feel a slow, steady heartbeat—was it Hannibal’s, or his own?

It didn’t matter. They were one and the same.

He still didn’t know where they were, or what day it was, or what had happened. And maybe this was still just the feeble scrabbling of his mind holding onto the remnants of life, providing him as much comfort as it could before everything faded to oblivion. But he was okay with that. Those things could come later. For now, he was comfortable, and Hannibal was beside him. For now, he could rest.

Just before he drifted back under, he thought he could hear the roar of waves in the distance, and floating gently on the air was the faint, familiar smell of chicken soup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished! And on Valentine's Day, no less :D This is a story that I began writing last August and kept working on little by little over the course of the past six months, but I wanted to wait for myself to finish it before I started posting because I knew even when I'd just started that parts of the plot would get really convoluted, I wanted to give myself the freedom and time to go back and edit when I needed to. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. Anyway, it's truly been a journey, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
